Affiliates Program


Program Participants

Member companies in the SOAL Affiliates Program share an interest in the core themes of the lab: the intersection of increasingly powerful information and communication technology on one hand, and increasingly rich social and economic interactions on the other hand. The Affiliates Program is supported by corporate membership fees of $75,000 per year and is designed to foster a productive relationship between academia and industry. These funds support research and facilitate the exploration of innovative ideas.

This Agreement is effective when the company pays its first annual contribution to the Social Algorithms Lab. The Agreement is considered renewed automatically upon each subsequent annual payment, and may be terminated by written notice from either Stanford University or the company to the other.

Member Benefits

Cost of membership is $75,000/year.

Membership in SOAL will facilitate communication and participation between Stanford University and members as follows:

  • Members will be invited to send representatives to participate in SOAL group meetings; all faculty, postdocs, and Ph.D. students involved in SOAL regularly attend.

  • Members will be invited to send representatives to the RAIN seminar series RAIN seminar series (Research on Algorithms, Incentives, and Networks).

  • On a space-available basis, members can send short-term visitors to the lab. Any such visitors will be subject to the Stanford policies regarding Visiting Scholars, in effect as of the date such Visiting Scholar is designated. A separate fee of $12,000 per academic quarter per visitor will be assessed.

  • Members will be invited to attend an annual SOAL workshop focused on high level problems of interest both to us and to the SOAL program members, together with discussion of potential solutions, and identification of potential directions for research.

  • Members will have opportunities to learn about research ideas and results in progress. Data and information resulting from SOAL research will be shared with members. Stanford retains first rights to publish such data and information.

  • Members will have opportunities to directly interface with faculty, postdocs, and students. Members may receive preprints and reprints of copies of (or access to) research reports, papers and other publications originated by faculty and students associated with the SOAL program.

  • Members will have an opportunity to recruit students for summer internships as well as full time employment after graduation.

  • SOAL intends to treat each SOAL member equally. If there are additional benefits offered to another SOAL member, those same benefits will also be offered to all SOAL members.

  • Members may provide additional funding above the membership fees to support an area of ongoing research being conducted by SOAL. All research results arising from the use of the additional funding will be shared with all SOAL members and the public. A member may request that the additional funding go to support a particular area of SOAL research identified on our website, or that the additional funding be used for SOAL research in a specific faculty laboratory, as long as the faculty is identified as participating in SOAL. In either instance, the faculty director of SOAL determines how the additional funds will be used in SOAL research.

Research Results and Open Source Software

This program is governed by Stanford University’s published policies on research and treatment of research results.

Contact Information

For more information, please contact:

Ramesh Johari
rjohari@stanford.edu
650 725 0535