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Companies step up to fund basic research. With government contributing less, corporate sponsors are collaborating with universities to further ‘pure science’

AROUND the periphery of the University of California, Berkeley campus, a new industry is emerging: Silicon Valley "lab-lets" for joint research between technology companies and university folks.

First, Intel Research at Berkeley opened a few years ago. Yahoo Research Berkeley opened last year, followed in the past six months by two more Berkeley ventures — the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology funded by a dozen venture capitalists, and the Reliable Adaptive Distributed systems research lab put up by Google Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

Down the highway at Stanford University, collaboration between tech companies and university faculty and students also is in high gear. Since Stanford is geographically in the midst of Silicon Valley, no lab-lets need be opened. Researchers from surrounding tech firms visit easily and often while students and professors go off campus to nearby firms.

At any given time, a majority of professors in the computer science department are collaborating with private companies. William Dally, chair of the computer science department, is helping to form Stream Processors Inc., while professor Rajeev Motwani helped Simplyhired.com get off the ground.

By Barbara Grady, BUSINESS WRITER

Full Story: http://www.insidebayarea.com/business/ci_3667431

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