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This question is intended to be analogous to the Fulbright one; however, the Microsoft Research scholarship would be for a PhD.

How may this scholarship influence one's possibilities to work in the academia or in the industry? How does it compare, e.g. in terms of prestige and academia/industry opportunities, against the Fulbright? Is the scholarship prestigious in the US, UK or on a world wide scale (especially if it is for a PhD in the UK)?

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    @peterh: The Microsoft Research PhD Scholarship doesn't seem to be related in any way to the various professional certifications that Microsoft offers.
    – Nate Eldredge
    Feb 23, 2015 at 21:15
  • @NateEldredge Yes, and this is what he needs to make visible on the first spot.
    – peterh
    Feb 23, 2015 at 21:19
  • I'm not familiar with it, but a scholarship's difficulty in getting is usually indicative of how prestigious it is. Fulbright Scholars are quite rare. If Microsoft hands these out to a lot of people in comparison, then its prestige is lower, i.e. if 10K students are eligible and 1000 get it, 1/10 is not as impressive as 1 in 10K
    – Compass
    Feb 23, 2015 at 21:31
  • I am not familiar with the Microsoft Research scholarship at all. Without further knowledge, I am unimpressed. The best way to convince me otherwise would be to tell me how much money the scholarship is worth.
    – emory
    Feb 23, 2015 at 22:29
  • Some of the best HCI research is done by Microsoft Research, just look at the number of papers at CHI from MR. It of course depends on the field, but I'd say it's VERY prestigious.
    – TheWanderer
    Feb 23, 2015 at 23:39

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Instead of worrying about how prestigious the award is on its own, ask yourself what type of research you're going to conduct using the funds. In the end, nobody will care that your research was funded by Microsoft or Google or the NSF (or whatever the UK version of that is); they'll care about the contribution you're making to the field.

Nobody is going to stop you at a job talk and say, "Well, your research is amazing, but I think you should have applied for funding from X-Company."

Barring any ethical issues, funding is funding. As long as you put it to good use, you should be in good shape!

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    While I think this is well-intentioned, I'm not sure I agree. In my experience, people definitely place a certain amount of value on the source of funding. Not to say that it will overshadow the quality of the research, but an average research program supported by a prestigious fellowship could be enough to distinguish a postdoctoral applicant.
    – Tim
    Feb 24, 2015 at 7:46
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    Does it help to have a prestigious fellowship? Sure. But the author isn't asking whether prestige matters - he is asking, specifically, whether the Microsoft Research PhD Scholarship will affect his changes of working in an academic setting. I stick my by answer - if he's more worried about the prestige of the fellowship than he is about the research he produces while on it, then that's more of a concern than anything else.
    – Yasha
    Feb 24, 2015 at 13:45
  • @Jacob I agree with everything you said. The background problem is that I don't know whether I should take a PhD position. It is a great opportunity and there aren't many great opportunities as this where I come from. The problem is that don't have anyone wise to talk to, someone who can give me advice and to whom I could give arguments so that he can help me make a decision with conviction
    – PALEN
    Feb 26, 2015 at 17:15

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