2021 AIMI-HAI Call for Proposals – AI in Medicine & Health

AIMI-HAI grant decisions were sent through email to the main PI on the proposal on October 12, 2021. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the tremendous potential to transform medicine and improve the human condition. In particular, AI will enhance patient outcomes via systems that increase diagnostic accuracy, advance drug development, provide more sophisticated patient monitoring, and personalize care to the needs of the individual.  To achieve the promise of AI in healthcare, significant challenges must be overcome to ensure safe, equitable, and robust systems. We must guide innovation responsibly and keep ethics, safety, and human-centered values at the heart of research, development, and implementation.

To achieve these goals, the Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Imaging and the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence jointly seek proposals that support new and ambitious ideas that reimagine artificial intelligence in healthcare, using real clinical data sets, with near term clinical applications that have a well-defined and testable impact. We expect to award up to five two-year grants of up to $200,000 each.  

HAI is simultaneously offering a separate funding opportunity, a general call for proposals for up to $75K for one year. Additional guidance on which funding source is most appropriate for your project, and other frequently asked questions, can be found here. You cannot submit the same research for both opportunities; however, the review committee may forward proposals submitted for the HAI-AIMI call for consideration for the HAI general call.

Priority Areas

In addition to the above criteria, preference will be given to projects that relate both to the mission of AIMI and the three broad HAI research areas: 

AIMI Mission:

AIMI develops and supports transformative medical AI applications and the latest in applied computational and biomedical imaging research to advance patient health. Drawing on Stanford’s interdisciplinary expertise in medicine, bioinformatics, statistics, electrical engineering, and computer science, the AIMI Center supports the development, evaluation and dissemination of new AI methods applied across the continuum of care.

HAI Focus Areas:

• Intelligence — research that aims to develop novel technologies inspired by the depth and versatility of human intelligence
• Augment Human Capabilities — research that aims to design and create AI technologies that work together with humans rather than replace them
• Human Impact — research that aims to understand and guide the global societal impact of AI technologies for the greater good

Potential topics may include: 

• The use of AI to re-imagine clinical workflows by incorporating novel technologies
• The development and/or dissemination of AI systems that enhance early detection, reduce diagnostic errors, or otherwise improve the accuracy, efficiency, timeliness, or communication of diagnostic results
• Algorithms that select appropriate treatment, or predict clinical outcomes
• Studies of the impact of AI on health economics, ethics, policy, privacy; including studies of how to maintain or enhance fairness related to race, ethnicity, and gender
• The creation of novel AI-based methods for image creation, reconstruction, and/or enhancement
• Methods that  improve the interaction between humans and AI technologies through interpretable, trustworthy, and fair AI, or by studying and enhancing user interactions with clinical AI systems

Submission Guidelines

Proposals are due on June 23, 2021 at 11:59pm PST. Proposals will undergo a scientific review and an ethics review.  The top ten proposals will be invited to present their project, in lightning talk format, to the review committee. Presentations will take place at the end of August and award recipients will be notified in September. Please submit using the Apply button below. 

The proposal (maximum 3 pages, excluding references, PDF, single-spaced, 11 point, 1 inch margins) should include the following components:

First two pages:

• Background and problem statement
  • Core research idea
  • Any results or findings from earlier phases of this research
• How your research idea innovates over existing methods/applications or brings together diverse disciplines
• Detailed technical (or general) problem solving approach, including 3-5 key project milestones and expected completion dates
• Team involved (faculty, postdocs, staff, and/or students as appropriate)
• Requested funding and associated informal budget sketch  (e.g., “25% RA 2qtrs: $18K; fieldwork travel $3K, equipment: $4K”); be sure to factor in the 8% infrastructure charge required by the university

Third page:

• Ethics and Society Review (ESR) statement: (one page, single-spaced, 11 point, 1 inch margins). The ESR panel may ask for more detail in response. 
  • Detail the ethical and societal risks of the proposed research, the principles that researchers in your field should follow in mitigating these risks, and how, specifically, you plan to use those principles to mitigate the risks in your research design. The ESR is focused on ethics and societal harms, in contrast to the IRB's focus on harms to research participants. Read here for examples of common risks, principles, and mitigations in HAI ESR statements.

Fourth page + 

• References (no max or min limits, at the end of the PDF file)

Selection Criteria

Proposals will be reviewed based on:

• Novelty or innovativeness of the proposed AI in healthcare project
• Scientific rigor of the proposed methods
• Likelihood the project will have a near term positive impact on health care delivery, patient satisfaction, clinical outcomes, or user satisfaction 
• The qualifications of the proposed team to complete the project
• Interdisciplinary collaborations beyond traditional computational and clinical disciplines
• The creativity of the proposed project, balanced by the project’s likelihood of success
• Alignment with the AIMI mission and HAI focus areas listed above
• Recommendations from the ethics review