"Facebook, 17 Universities Announce Sponsored Academic Research Agreement

Facebook, 17 Universities Announce Sponsored Academic Research Agreement

All Facebook by David Cohen  /

Facebook is turning to 17 universities to help it speed up technology projects.

Regina Dugan, vice president of engineering and head of the social network’s Building 8 group, announced the Sponsored Academic Research Agreement, a multi-university group that will allow the social network to collaborate with individual faculty and labs on joint technology projects within weeks and days.

The 17 initial members of SARA are:

• Arizona State University
• University of California-Berkeley
• University of California-San Francisco
• California Institute of Technology
• Georgia Institute of Technology
• Harvard University
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Northeastern University
• Princeton University
• Rice University
• Stanford University
• Texas A&M University
• Virginia Tech
• University of Waterloo

Dugan said in her Facebook post:

The answer is out there … if we are humble enough to find it.

The answer matters … when we ship it.

That’s why the B8 team has hardware and software experts who have shipped more than 1.7 billion consumer devices in 170 countries. It’s why we work in partnership with entrepreneurs, engineering teams, system integrators and businesses large and small–globally. And it’s why we have built partnerships with many of the best research minds in the world.

SARA is designed to make it easier and faster for B8 to work with university researchers–not in the nine to 12 months that’s typically required, but within weeks.