EPFL strengthens its research collaboration with Google

For some time now, industry-academia collaboration has been seen as essential to economic growth as well as to fostering innovation and talent. Since 2010, EPFL and Google have been collaborating on close to 30 impactful and highly valuable research projects, many of which right here in IC School, to develop innovative technological solutions for the complex and multi-faceted challenges of today and tomorrow.

With the aim of strengthening this already well-oiled machine, EPFL and Google are now formally partnering in research by signing a framework agreement, to establish synergies in interconnected and mutually beneficial areas of research. This collaboration will also assist in bridging the gap between the academic world and the industry to establish best practices for real-life scenarios.

The collaboration agreement was presented during the EPFL – Google Research Day at the beginning of the year, where over 100 stakeholders from both organizations presented areas of research focus such as machine learning, natural language understanding, systems research, optimization and computational thinking in education.

"Our approach to research has evolved in the last few years; we're open sourcing ever more of the work that we do. We believe that a transparent approach to research is crucial to advancing the ecosystem at large – it benefits everyone," highlights Olivier Bousquet, the Head of machine learning at Google Research in Zurich.

“This research agreement is a huge opportunity to further increase IC School's collaboration with the industry. The digital transformation taking place requires that EPFL and companies such as Google join forces to guarantee the transparency and reproducibility of research, and to make efficient use of the nearly unimaginable quantities of data and computation to solve real-world problems and significantly improve people’s lives,” says IC Dean James Larus.