Frequently asked questions

ARA funds in a variety of research areas relevant to Amazon, such as applied machine learning, automated reasoning, computer vision, fairness in artificial intelligence, machine learning algorithms and theory, natural language processing, robotics, security, sustainability and more. Please refer to the detailed CFPs for more information.

The Amazon Research Awards (ARA) program funds academic research and related contributions to open-source projects by top academic researchers around the world.

Awards are structured as one-time unrestricted gifts to the Principal Investigator's academic institution or organization, and can include cash and AWS Promotional Credits. Though this funding is not extendable, applicants can submit new proposals for subsequent calls.

Please follow the instructions on the specific CFP you are applying to.

Researchers from around the world are encouraged to apply. Please refer to the ARA Program Rules for eligibility.

We evaluate research proposals and provide decisions via email to all applicants approximately three months after the submission deadline. Please follow the timeline on the specific CFP you are applying to.

An Amazon contact is an Amazon employee who is aware of the proposal, familiar with the Principal Investigator’s research and may be willing to serve as an Amazon research contact for the proposal, if it is selected. An Amazon contact is not required to submit a proposal. While the ARA team is not able to provide an Amazon contact for the PI prior to submission, all funded proposals will be assigned an Amazon research contact by the review panel.

Each proposal application should be submitted by a single faculty member, who will serve as the Primary PI. One co-PI per proposal can be included in the application form. ARA defines a co-PI as an individual equally accountable for research performance and management of funding. Formal co-PI’s must be a full-time faculty/permanent researcher and meet ARA eligibility requirements. Other members of the research team can and should be mentioned within the proposal.

Principle Investigators can only submit one proposal at each deadline. A Primary PI can be listed as a co-PI on an additional proposal, but must withdraw if the other proposal is selected. It’s also possible that another CFP may decide to fund your research, if it meets the scope of that CFP.

A proposed cash budget is generally expected to support one to two graduate students (or a post-doctoral researcher) for one year, plus some conference travel and equipment. The budget should include a list of expected costs specified in USD and is not required to include administrative overhead costs. The final award amount will be determined by the awards panel. Please refer to the CFP for specific budget guidelines.


Additionally, proposals may include a request for AWS Promotional Credits¹. Proposals should include the requested amount, a short justification, a list of AWS products and any AWS Public Datasets to be used in the proposed research. The final amount of free AWS Promotional Credits will be determined by the awards panel.


^{1. Please note that your use of any AWS Promotional Credit is subject to the general AWS Customer Agreement terms or other terms governing your use of AWS Services (“Agreement”). In the event of a conflict between these Rules and the Agreement, the Agreement will control with respect to your access to and use of the Service Offerings. Additionally, any use of AWS Promotional Credit will be in accordance with and subject to the AWS Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions. In the event of a conflict between these Rules and the AWS Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions, the AWS Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions will govern with respect to any AWS Promotional Credit you receive.}

Project proposals are reviewed by an internal awards panel and the results are communicated approximately three months after the submission deadline. We will communicate the decision to the primary PI listed on each proposal, and will make an announcement on the ARA website. We expect the primary PI to notify the rest of their team about funding decisions.

Unfortunately, due to the number of proposals we receive, we are unable to provide detailed reasons a proposal was not accepted.

Each project will be assigned an Amazon research contact. The researchers are encouraged to maintain regular communication with their Amazon contact to discuss ongoing research and project progress. We also encourage publishing the outcome of the project and committing any related code to open-source code repositories.

ARA funding is distributed as unrestricted gifts to universities. As such, the funding does not result in any transfer or license of any intellectual property rights. Please refer to the ARA Program Rules for more information.

Recipients will have access to Amazon datasets that are already public, such as the Amazon Bin Image Dataset, but not to non-public data.

We are happy to review non-confidential project proposals. As such, project proposals shall not contain any confidential information (please do not include any information in your proposal that you or others consider confidential). Amazon does not accept any legal obligation (whether of confidentiality, compensation, return or otherwise) with respect to any proposals. Amazon reserves the right to implement similar ideas in the future without restriction or obligation. Please refer to the ARA Program Rules for more information.

We provide limited email support via research-awards@amazon.com. Due to the volume of emails we receive, we may not be able to respond to questions where the answer is available on the website.

Please email research-awards@amazon.com to be added to the CFP email announcement.

Yes, in 2020 the two programs merged and MLRA now funds awards through ARA, under the AWS AI call for proposal.

Yes, please visit the collaborations page for more information.