Sony Research Award Program 2026 - Faculty Innovation Award

Registration Deadline:

Event Contact:

  • Swapneeta Date

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Overview

  • Funding up to $100,000 USD per year for accepted proposals
  • One-year research period with possible extension for subsequent years
  • Sponsored research agreement required between Sony and PI's institution
  • Access to collaboration with Sony researchers and scientists
  • Single all-inclusive payment covering research costs, overhead, and all associated fees
  • Awards paid in USD or respective local currency depending on country
  • Results for noncommercial use by Sony; IP rights specified in research agreement

 

Priority Areas

Information Technology

  • Affective Computing: Affective/cognitive state estimation with context; emotion regulation with AI agent; motion-robust remote vital sensing; neural mechanism of motion sickness/cybersickness
  • Audio, Music, Speech, and Language Processing: Multimodal approaches for advanced spatial audio
  • Cloud Edge System: Distributed system infrastructure framework; real-time multi-agent (LLM) vision system; software development processes in LLM era; terascale LLM software development/QA
  • Communication: AI-assisted QoE enhancement for Wi-Fi; AI-based ray-tracing for channel modeling; deterministic Wi-Fi with multi-AP coordination; non-terrestrial networks; use-case-driven network optimization via Open RAN; Wi-Fi systems for space environments; Wi-Fi transformation for AI traffic
  • Computer Vision: 4D representations for physical AI; co-design of sensor and physical AI; culture-dependent reasoning in VLMs; data-efficient RGB-X learning; embodied world model with multimodal sensing; lightweight performance predictors for model optimization; sensor-aware minimal-footprint neural imaging; ultra-low-power/low-bandwidth sensing; vision model design with LLM; world models for humanoid
  • Human Sensing and Interaction: Haptic sensing and interaction technologies; human-object interaction, hand-object interaction; interactive content creation
  • Linux System: Cyber resilience technology for embedded Linux; embedded Linux security assessment method; hardening Linux using external technologies; OSS license verification techniques and methods
  • Machine Learning: Controllable character representation for cross-domain animation; coordinated motion generation for multi-character interaction; dexterous object interaction for virtual character; monocular 3D human pose and mesh recovery; physics-based character interaction with perception; style-agnostic representation for avatar control
  • RF Sensing: AI-based indoor-propagation analysis for RF sensing; radar-centric in-cabin occupant condition sensing; self-supervised learning for RF sensing
  • Robotics: Vision-language-action for physical and virtual agents
  • Security: Anti-piracy, anti-leakage and its economics; efficient graph structures in Web3
  • Software Development Technology: Software architecture analysis in large projects

Entertainment Technology

  • Audio, Music, Speech, and Language Processing: Automatic evaluation for multilingual expressive TTS; cross-lingual expressive voice cloning with natural prosody; video-grounded long-context LLM agents for translation
  • RF Sensing: Emotion and behavior prediction using radar; RF-based interaction sensing for entertainment experiences
  • Robotics: Digital twins for expressive interactive characters
  • Sports Technology: Sports technology for injury prevention; sports technology for physical/cognitive performance
  • Visual/Visualization: Automated content generation; digital human (capture, modeling, rigging, animation, rendering, hair modeling, cloth simulation); generative AI for content creation; interactive material visualization (multi-physics); light field processing; neural rendering/reconstruction; physical AI for content creation; volumetric video processing

Device Technology

  • Micro LED Devices: High-efficiency red micro LED; microLED-based optical interconnect; monolithic RGB/single-chip architecture; optical extraction/resonant structure
  • Optical Metasurface Design Theory/Framework: Design enhancement by physics-informed AI/DL; image quality centric design optimization; metasurface spaceplate for compact lens system
  • RF Sensing: Energy-efficient RF transceiver/receiver design; joint optimization of radar-waveform and signal-processing
  • Spatial Light Modulator: 2D array tunable metasurface light modulator

 

Eligibility & Requirements

Principal Investigator Requirements:

  • Must be affiliated with eligible university, educational institution, or governmental/non-profit research institute
  • Must be full-time professor (full professor, associate professor, or assistant professor) or researcher
  • Must be eligible to supervise Ph.D. students at their institution
  • For UK: Includes Senior Lecturers, Principal Lecturers, Lecturers, and Readers eligible to supervise Ph.D. students
  • Adjunct professors and adjunct researchers are not eligible
  • Professor Emeritus is not eligible

Geographic Eligibility (PI's institution must be located in):

  • United States, Canada, India
  • European countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom

Co-Principal Investigators:

  • Co-PIs allowed but must be from same institution as PI
  • All Co-PIs must meet same eligibility criteria as PI
  • Co-PIs required to sign program documents
  • Only one award made to PI and PI's institution if selected

Multiple Submissions:

  • PI or different PIs from same institution may submit multiple proposals for different research topics
  • Each PI limited to one proposal per keyword
  • No identical proposals from same PI
  • Unlimited proposals from same university with different PIs for same topic

Proposal Requirements:

  • Select single most relevant keyword from provided list
  • Must describe differentiation from current state-of-the-art
  • Proposal limited to 11 pages total: 10-page maximum proposal (including all references) plus 1-page budget summary
  • PDF format, under 16 MB file size
  • Minimum 10-point font size
  • Must include: Title, abstract, methods, goals/milestones, references, primary keyword
  • Must include best contact email and phone number (with country code) for PI
  • Separate CV file for PI (and Co-PIs if applicable) required, no page limit but under 16 MB
  • Proposals for one-year period only; no multi-year proposals accepted
  • Budget must be all-inclusive of research costs, overhead, and all fees (maximum $100K USD)

Institutional Requirements:

  • Sponsored research agreement required between Sony and PI's institution before funding available
  • No confidential or proprietary information in submitted proposals (treated as non-confidential and non-proprietary)
  • PI and institution must have full authority to grant noncommercial use rights to Sony for any background IP
  • No third-party involvement allowed in sponsored research agreement

Deliverables:

  • Three quarterly reports minimum
  • Final research summary report
  • Responses to progress questionnaire
  • Other deliverables may be specified based on project nature

Evaluation Criteria:

  • Research innovation and differentiation from state-of-the-art
  • Alignment with selected keyword and Sony's research interests
  • Technical approach and methodology
  • Potential use cases and applications relevant to Sony
  • Feasibility and timeline
  • Qualifications of research team

Timeline

  • July 15, 2026: Application period opens
  • September 15, 2026, Submission deadline
  • Around March 2027: Award winners notified
  • After March 2027: Sponsored research agreement negotiation and execution with selected proposals
  • Following agreement execution: Funding available via single payment
  • One year from funding start: Research period (with possible extension)

 

How to Submit