2024 Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Seed Grants

Call for HAI Seed Grant Proposals

The Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence’s vision for the future is led by the commitment to promote human-centered uses of AI, design for it using human-centered methods, and ensure that humanity benefits from the technology and that the benefits are broadly shared. Along these lines, we seek proposals that support new, ambitious, and speculative ideas with the objective of getting initial results. We welcome proposals from the whole array of humanistic, social scientific, natural scientific, biomedical, and engineering approaches, including critical, historical, ethnographic, clinical, experimental, and inventive work from discrete studies to research for book publications to speaker series to system building and evaluation. We especially aim to fund collaborations of faculty and students whose work bridges two or more disciplines and proposals that can make a persuasive case that these initial results will catalyze further support from internal and external stakeholders.

We expect to award approximately 25 grants, up to $75,000 each for a one-year period with the possibility of an additional $10,000 for public policy analysis.

Priority Areas

In addition to the above criteria, preference will be given to high-impact projects that align with the three broad HAI research areas:

• Intelligence — research that aims to develop novel technologies inspired by the depth and versatility of human intelligence. Potential topics may include  AI inspired by neuroscience, cognitive science, and psychology; novel unsupervised, semi-supervised, self-supervised, and supervised learning methods for diverse data types; knowledge and semantics.
• Augment Human Capabilities — research that aims to design and create AI technologies that augment humans rather than replace them. Potential topics/domains may include AI and human-computer interaction; health, medicine, and wellness; robotics and automation; sustainability and climate change; education, law.
• 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 impact of AI on economics, society, government, law, ethics, philosophy, policy, and other related areas of the social sciences and humanities. This may include race, ethnicity, and gender studies; interpretable, trustworthy, and fair AI; the intellectual and conceptual foundations of AI, its history, and its cultural impact.

New Opportunity: Additional Grant for Public Policy Analysis

This year, we are piloting a funding opportunity that incentivizes the consideration of public policy in human-centered AI research. We are offering an additional $10,000 in funding for select proposals that include a policy component, bringing the potential total grant to $85,000. The policy section will undergo a separate review process and preference will be given to proposals that actively consider the policy implications of their research, including:

• Investigating what kinds of policy challenges your research uncovers or implicates;
• Formulating concrete recommendations for policymakers;
• Developing at least one policy-facing publication or event based on your research (e.g., a policy brief or workshop) geared specifically toward informing policymakers. 

Funded projects will work with HAI’s policy and society team. Such support could come in the form of regular consultation meetings, policy writing guidance, support with the design and execution of a policy-focused event, and more.

Submission Guidelines

Proposals are due on August 12, 2024 at 11:59pm PDT. Proposals will undergo a scientific review and an ethics and society review. Award recipients will be notified by late October. Please submit using the Apply button on this webpage. 

The proposal (no longer than 3 pages, excluding references/policy component, PDF, single-spaced, 11 point, 1 inch margins) should include the following components:

First two pages:

• Background and problem statement
  • Core research idea
  • How your research idea innovates over existing methods/applications or brings together diverse disciplines
• Detailed technical (or general) problem solving approach. HAI is working to develop a framework on how to conduct human-centered AI research. One way we think about it is here. In what ways, if any, does your approach relate to this framework?
• Team involved (faculty, postdocs, staff, and/or students as appropriate)
• Requested funding and associated sketch budget (e.g., “25% RA 2qtrs: $18K; fieldwork travel $3K, equipment: $4K, policy component, if applicable: $10K, 8% infrastructure charge)

Third page:

• Ethics and Society Review (ESR) statement: (one page PDF, single-spaced, 11 point, 1 inch margins). The ESR process aims to create space for project teams to stop and think about the potential ethical dilemmas and societal challenges that could follow from their work. As part of the ESR process, our panel may ask for more detail in response. Please utilize the ESR Statement Instructions for details about:
  • what goes into an ESR statement
  • ESR statement template
  • how the process works
  • and more

Fourth page + 

• References (no max or min limits, at the end of the PDF file)
• If interested in the additional grant for public policy analysis, include a half-page statement on policy implications:
  • Describe the specific policy issues your research addresses and how your research insights can contribute to the development of effective policies.
  • Outline how your research can be translated into actionable policy recommendations (e.g., policies that could be developed or modified based on your research).
  • Explain how you will communicate your policy-relevant findings to policy audiences (e.g., a policy implication chapter in your research paper, a policy brief for non-technical policy audiences, a policy-focused workshop for an outcome-driven discussion).

Selection Criteria

HAI will review proposals based on:

• Likelihood to make a positive impact on our planet, our nations, our communities, our families and/or our lives
• Novelty or innovation in the application, development or study of AI 
• Whether the proposed team has the proper credentials to complete the project
• Involving multiple disciplines 
• Intellectual merit of the proposal, balanced with quality and creativity
• Alignment with the Priority Areas listed above
• Recommendations from the ethics and society review