Academic Partnerships

For Faculty

The Academic Partnerships team builds and sustains long-term relationships with key faculty members at select research universities. The goal of these programs is to foster deep engagements between Yahoo and academics for mutual benefit.

Y STAR

Yahoo Servers to Academic Researchers

Yahoo Labs’ Academic Partnerships teamed up with the Yahoo Data Center Operations group in 2010 on an initiative called YSTAR (Yahoo Servers to Academic Researchers) under which Yahoo refurbishes and donates used servers to academic research institutions. As of June 2015, Yahoo has donated over 5,000 servers to more than 40 universities in the U.S. and abroad.

ACE Awards

Academic Career Enhancement Awards

ACE Awards are made annually to top young professors at leading research universities around the world who are selected among many promising first- and second-year faculty members conducting Yahoo-relevant academic research. Yahoo Labs awards $10,000 in unrestricted grant awards to these future superstars to enhance their ability to begin productive research programs. Labs scientists and Campus Relationship Managers may nominate candidates and must provide justification to enable the selection committee to choose final award recipients.

FREP

Faculty Research and Engagement Program

The FREP is designed to produce the highest-quality scientific collaborations and outcomes by having Yahoo scientists engage with top faculty members to promote major advancements in Web science. These collaborations will solve problems of mutual interest with measurable outcomes such as joint papers, advances in algorithm design, systems research outside our scope and experimental results. This is not an open call for proposals. Yahoo scientists reach out to collaborate with faculty that can work on specific research problems that are of interest to them. They can also work with a student as long as his or her faculty advisor is listed on the proposal and the student is legally able to be employed and receive a paycheck in their name. Yahoo scientists should drive the proposal submission as well as the engagement to ensure measurable outcomes from the collaboration.

We encourage collaborations that are closely aligned with Yahoo's areas of interest, business challenges, and corporate goals. Funds are allocated based on how well the proposals meet the following criteria:

  • Focused on key research challenges on which academics can drive further growth
  • In alignment with Yahoo’s long-term strategic vision
  • Importance of Yahoo to continue/build relationships with the specified academic/university
  • Academic is from a strategic university where Academic Partnerships has a relationship

MACRO

Multi-year Advanced Collaborative Research Opportunity

The MACRO program involves more strategic and deeper research collaborations than our FREP (Faculty Research and Engagement Program). As with FREP, it is designed to produce the highest-quality scientific collaborations and outcomes by having Yahoo scientists engage with top faculty members to promote major advancements in Web science. But MACRO also offers a multi-year option for extended and deeper work where there is an especially trusted relationship and more ambitious goals. Just like FREP, collaborations must be closely aligned with Yahoo's areas of interest, business challenges, and corporate goals. Funds are very selectively assigned based on how well the proposals meet the following criteria:

  • Focused on key research challenges on which academics can drive further growth
  • In alignment with Yahoo’s long-term strategic vision
  • Importance of Yahoo to continue/build relationships with the specified academic/university
  • Academic is from a strategic university where Academic Partnerships has a relationship

Sabbaticals

The Academic Partnerships team and Labs scientists have extensive relationships with some of the most talented academic researchers and faculty worldwide. As such, Yahoo Labs gladly works with academia who wish to take a sabbatical to join a world-class corporate research organization to work on real-world challenges.  

Webscope

The Yahoo Webscope Program is our data sharing initiative for academic researchers. It is a reference library of interesting and scientifically useful datasets for non-commercial use by academics and other scientists. All datasets have been reviewed to conform to Yahoo's data protection standards, including strict controls on privacy. We have a number of datasets that we are excited to share with you.