Microsoft's European perspective

As part of its European Science Initiative, software giant Microsoft has announced that it intends to open up to five ‘centres of excellence’ in Europe over the next five years. The company is also funding a career-development fellowship programme, which will see up to ten European postdocs in science and technology receive as much as €250,000 (US$320,000) each. In addition, Microsoft will support up to 30 PhDs a year, fund scientific workshops throughout the continent and sponsor an award for European Scientist of the Year.

All of these efforts will help Microsoft to find ways to match its computing expertise with different scientific disciplines in Europe, says Stephen Emmott, director of the company's External Research Office in Cambridge, UK. It also aims to match its own research expertise in computing with promising European scientists in emerging fields that embody “new kinds of science”, he adds.

To that end, the first centre of excellence will be the Centre for Computational and Systems Biology at the University of Trento in Italy. The university and Italian local and national governments are also providing funding. The centre will employ ten full-time research directors, and with postdocs, technicians and visiting scientists, should play host to about 40 scientists at any one time.

Microsoft hope that the five centres of excellence will help to build bridges between computing and other sciences, as well as between industry and academia, but it also wants them to serve as a focal point for career development, says Emmott. The company aims to match promising young researchers with more senior scientists throughout Europe, as well as computer scientists at the company, and provide them with strong funding and infrastructure. “A key part is supporting the careers of various promising scientists,” says Emmott.

For both graduate students and postdocs, the company is seeking young scientists willing to work at interfaces: between the United States and Europe; the company and academia; and computing and more traditional disciplines.

The other centres of excellence have yet to be announced, but sites in France, Germany and Britain are currently under consideration.

http://research.microsoft.com/ero