Microsoft Research Special Projects
The Microsoft Research Special Projects group operates on the boundary between engineering and research to drive breakthrough innovation. We are a research group with world-class specialists solving highly uncertain, complex problems. We build technologies to benefit society, including tools for digital safety, plurality, and evidence-based policy.
Our criteria for problem selection reflect an intentional focus on the most critical problems where we can make a meaningful impact for society, industry, and the planet:
A version of the problem exists in the world today.
The problem has or will soon cross a critical boundary.
Every person on the planet is a potential stakeholder.
Microsoft can uniquely contribute added value.
The Special Projects solution approach is one of specialized research that requires novel combinations of domain expertise and technological capability to succeed. It involves working beyond existing disciplines, organizations, and other boundaries in a participatory approach to transforming real-world practice:
- Convene: We co-develop and participate in internal and external collaborations for solving complex sociotechnical problems.
- Learn: We advance new understandings through leading-edge scientific research and knowledge sharing.
- Build: We develop technological tools and artefacts for empowering organizations, communities, and individuals.
- Amplify: We deploy technologies that create considered and measurable impact for society.
Our teams naturally cross functional disciplines including research, engineering, and technical program management. This leads to cultures and processes that draw on diverse skills and experiences while identifying, developing, and delivering projects that reflect our common values, ambition, and commitment to disruptive innovation.
Special Projects has a recognized track record of delivering such disruptive innovations, which has included creating new businesses (Azure for Operators), transitioning teams and services (Watch For, OneFuzz), and publicly highlighting Microsoft’s commitment to environmental sustainability (Project Natick) and societal resilience (SMART Health Cards).
The evolution of research
We continuously review our projects to ensure we are oriented towards impact, using iterative work cycles based on rapid prototyping to enable rapid pivots in project direction. Impact is delivered through independent activity (e.g., build and ship major full-stack initiatives and open-source releases), joint exploration with Microsoft product teams (e.g., tech transfers, code handoffs, embedded engineers, collaborative integration, service level agreement releases), and publications (e.g., academic papers, press releases, patents). We select delivery models based on business need, opportunity, and our vision of a better future.
Active projects
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Project
Human Rights Technology
Human-centered tools helping communities take evidence-based action in the fight against human rights violations
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Project
Project Eclipse
With Project Eclipse, the Urban Innovation Initiative presents a full stack -from sensors to analytics- air quality sensing platform for cities.
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Open-Source
ElectionGuard
ElectionGuard is an open source software development kit (SDK) that makes voting more secure, transparent and accessible.
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Project
Project Freta
Project Freta is a free, cloud-based offering from the New Security Ventures (NSV) team at Microsoft Research that provides automated full-system volatile memory inspection of Linux systems.
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Project
Holoportation™
We took the technology out of the studio and into a car – making Holoportation™ truly mobile. To accomplish this, we reduced the bandwidth requirements by 97%, while still maintaining quality. […]
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PROJECT
Project GraphRAG
GraphRAG (Graphs + Retrieval Augmented Generation) is a technique for richly understanding text datasets by combining text extraction, network analysis, and LLM prompting and summarization into a single end-to-end system.
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PROJECT
3D Telemedicine
Bringing specialized healthcare to rural and underserved communities with live 3D communication.
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Project
Post-quantum Cryptography
Cryptography in the era of quantum computers The private communication of individuals and organizations is protected online by cryptography. […]
Related groups
Recent technology transfers
In addition to the active groups and teams that we collaborate with in Microsoft Research, we want to acknowledge the contributions of groups that have transitioned from research to making a direct impact on real world solutions in Microsoft product groups, including: