Amazon Research Awards

Amazon Research Awards

Important Deadlines

• OCG Internal Deadline: October 21, 2026
• Amazon  submission deadline: November 4, 2026. 

By October 21, 2026, PIs must submit the following completed applications materials to your assigned Proposal Analyst (PA) for OCG for review/support to allow for sufficient time for CU contracting review and coordination:

• Proposal Submission Request (PSR)
• Completed proposal package and supporting documentation
• Indemnification and governing law waiver drafts
• Written confirmation of eligibility and acceptance of program requirements acceptance

Available Research Areas

Funding varies by category (some averaging up to $100,000) and may include unrestricted funds and/or AWS promotional credits.

Current award categories include: 

• Agentic AI
• AI for Information Security
• Amazon Security
• Automated Reasoning
• AWS Cryptography
• Build on Trainium: Agentic Recursive Improvement of Kernels & Frameworks
• Multilingual and Contextual AI Evaluation
• On-Device Multimodal Perception
• Synthetic Data Generation for Multimodal Perception

Investigator Eligibility

To participate, the PI must

• Be eligible to serve as a PI in accordance CU Boulder’s eligibility chart
  • https://www.colorado.edu/ocg/principal-investigator-eligibility 
• Be a full-time faculty member

Special Requirements and Risks

Indemnification and Governing Law Waiver Required

Participation requires acceptance of terms that:

• Release Amazon from certain liabilities
• Apply governing law outside the State of Colorado

As a result: 

• An Indemnification and Governing Law Waiver must be drafted and submitted to OCG prior to proposal submission 
• With OCG guidance, the PI will identify risk and mitigation strategy. 
• Department Chairs are required to sign the waiver in acceptance of financial risk associated with participation in the ARA program. 

Confidentiality Limitation 

• Proposal material must not contain CU Confidential Information 
• Per Program Rules, Amazon program rules do not guarantee confidential treatment of submitted materials.

Written PI Confirmation Required

Prior to submission, PI must provide written confirmation to OCG that they:

• Have read the Amazon Research Awards Program Rules
• Meet eligibility requirements
• Understand and accept all program terms and conditions

Terms May Change

Amazon reserves the right to revise program terms at any time without notification being provided to the University or the PI. Any terms revision will apply to awarded work.

Proposal Submission Process

• All Proposals must be coordinated and submitted through OCG. PIs should not submit independently. 
• Submit a Proposal Submission Request (PSR) ASAP to begin proposal development and waivers coordination.   

OCG Proposal and Contracting Support                                           

• Proposal Development: Contact your assigned Proposal Analyst for proposal, budget, and submission guidance. 
• Terms & Conditions and Waivers: Contact Liz Sanders as the OCG Contract Officer for assistance with program terms and required waivers. 

Additional Information 

Additional information on this and other large technology company academic award programs can be found here.