The Research Scholar Program provides unrestricted gifts to support research at institutions around the world, and is focused on funding world-class research conducted by early-career professors.
Eligibility criteria
• Applicants must be a full-time assistant, associate, or professor at a university or degree-granting research institution at the time of the application submission.
• Post doctoral staff can only serve as a co-PI, not a primary PI.
Applicants must have received their PhD within seven years of submission (e.g. applicant in 2022 must have received PhD in 2015 or later).
• We consider exceptions for applicants who have been teaching seven years or fewer and had delays, such as working in industry, parental leave, leave of absence, etc. This exception request can be documented on the application.
Applicants can submit one application per round.
• Faculty can only serve as a PI or Co-PI per round. Applicants cannot serve on two separate proposals.
Applicants can apply a maximum of 3 times within the 7 years post-PhD.
Funding amounts
The funds granted will be up to $60,000 USD and are intended to support the advancement of the professor’s research.
Supporting cutting-edge research
Proposals are selected through an internal review process.
Applicants will be notified of their proposal status within six months of the initial submission.
We ask applicants to categorize their proposals into one of the following areas of interest to Google in Computer Science and related fields:
• Algorithms and optimization
• Applied science
• Geo/maps
• Health research
• Human-computer interaction
• Machine learning and data mining
• Machine perception
• Mobile
• Natural language processing
• Networking
• Privacy
• Quantum computing
• Security
• Software engineering and programming languages
• Structured data, extraction, semantic graph, and database management
Systems (hardware and software)
How do I apply for the Research Scholar Program?
• Step 1: Read advice on how to write a good proposal here.
• Step 2: Write your proposal using the advice mentioned in step 1.
• Step 3: Submit your proposal once the application window opens. You can find format recommendations in the FAQ.
• Step 4: Applicants are notified within 4 months of submission.