Funding opportunity

BRAID Scoping to Embed Responsible AI in Context

• Opportunity status: Closed
• Funders: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
• Funding type: Grant
• Total fund: £2,200,000
• Award range: £187,500 - £312,500
• Publication date: 31 May 2023
• Opening date: 29 June 2023 9:00am UK time
• Closing date: 5 October 2023 4:00pm UK time

Last updated: 7 September 2023 - see all updates

Apply for funding to undertake scoping and preparation work, partnership building and AI ecosystem mapping that could be the focus of a responsible AI demonstrator project.

This opportunity is part of (AHRC’s) Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) programme.

You must be based at a UK research organisation eligible for AHRC funding.

Proposals will set out a preliminary study of responsible AI research and practice as demonstrable in a well-scoped context for AI such as:

• a particular sector or type of organisation
• particular settings, use cases or applications

Please note the application submission window will open on 29 June 2023.

Who can apply

Before applying for funding, check the following:

• your proposal is suitable for funding under this funding opportunity
• the eligibility of your organisation
• your eligibility as an individual

UK research and Innovation (UKRI) is introducing new role types for opportunities being run on the new Funding Service from 22 May 2023.

Who is eligible to apply

Projects should be undertaken by a multidisciplinary team – proposals from single discipline teams are out of scope for this opportunity. We expect to see at least three disciplines represented in the leadership team. This can include individual team members who work across multiple disciplines.

Proposals must be submitted by the project lead but should be co-designed with the input of all partners.

Leadership Team: Project Lead

Standard AHRC eligibility criteria will apply to this funding opportunity for UK project leads and research organisations.

You must be a resident in the UK and be hosted by an eligible research organisation (higher education institutions or recognised independent research organisations) as stated in the Research Funding Guide.

Leadership Team: Project Co-Leads

Standard AHRC eligibility criteria will apply to this funding opportunity for UK Project Co-Leads based at eligible research organisations, as stated in the Research Funding Guide.

Project co-leads from outside the UK and from non-academic organisations may be included in your costings, up to 30% of the total Full Economic Cost (FEC).

Non-UK and Non-Academic project co-leads

Project co-leads from outside the UK and from non-academic organisations may be included in your costings, up to 30% of the total Full Economic Cost (FEC). Where justified, the time of these partners can be listed under ‘Exceptions’ and will be funded at 100% FEC.

The combined costs for non-UK and non-academic project co-leads must not exceed 30% of the total FEC of the grant application.

We recognise that some partners may be employed by a government-funded organisation. To avoid the double counting of public funds in the costings, no salary costs will be covered for project co-leads from government bodies

Salary costs for new staff to be recruited for the proposed work can be submitted as part of the application. Travel and subsistence costs and overheads will be allowable if appropriately justified.

Early career researchers

The inclusion of early career researchers and researchers from marginalised or under-represented groups at all stages is strongly encouraged. Appropriate support and mentoring for these individuals should be provided to ensure that professional and career development opportunities can be realised.

If the project lead is an early career researcher, as defined here, a mentor must be included within the application. This mentor must be clearly outlined in the resources and cost justification section of the application form.

For mentoring cost, an hour per month of the mentor’s time should be built into the budget as a directly allocated cost and entered in the application form in the other directly allocated costs section. Estates and indirect costs for this one hour can also be charged to the grant.

Institutions may provide additional mentoring support alongside other forms of leadership or career development support for early career applicants.

Applicants at other stages of their career can also include mentorship in the application if it is felt it would support the project leadership and benefit delivery of the proposed work.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

We are committed to achieving equality of opportunity for all funding applicants. We encourage applications from a diverse range of researchers.

We support people to work in a way that suits their personal circumstances. This includes:

• career breaks
• support for people with caring responsibilities
• flexible working
• alternative working patterns

Find out more about equality, diversity and inclusion at UKRI.

What we're looking for

Scope

About the programme

This funding opportunity is part of AHRC’s Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) programme, led by Professors Ewa Luger and Shannon Vallor (The University of Edinburgh) with collaborating partner the Ada Lovelace Institute. We are looking to fund projects that will undertake scoping and preparation work, building partnerships and mapping parts of the AI ecosystem that could be the focus of a future responsible AI demonstrator project.

Types of projects we want to fund

While ‘responsible AI’ is recognised by many as a laudable and necessary aim alongside effective regulation; its meaning in AI development, use and governance remains contested and unclear, beyond high-level appeals to ethical principles such as accountability, transparency, safety, justice or trustworthiness.

Clarifying and demonstrating the full potential of responsible AI research and practices requires more than top-down principles; it requires bottom-up evidence grounded in concrete contexts of AI development and application.

To that end, we invite you to propose a preliminary study of responsible AI research and practice as demonstrable in a well-scoped context for AI, such as:

• a particular organisation type and sector (for example hospital, bank, start-up, university, etc.)
• particular settings (for example research lab, product team, classroom, city/region etc.) – particular use cases or applications (for example fraud detection, medical decision support, autonomous vehicle, image or video generation, etc.)

All proposals must clearly outline the rationale for their chosen context, including why a deeper understanding of what ‘responsible AI’ means in that context is important, and who would benefit from it. When thinking about the project’s outcomes, you should consider:

• the potential for adoption and translation of existing responsible AI research, tools and practices into this context (for example, algorithmic audits, impact assessments, red-teaming exercises, model cards, ethics review boards)
• the potential for new responsible AI knowledge, tools or practices to be developed in this context, or adapted for this AI context from other domains or histories
• the barriers, opportunities and incentives to Responsible AI in this context
• the network of actors, stakeholders, powers and interests in this context
• achievable goals and action-guiding criteria for Responsible AI in this context

Note we expect funded projects to explore at least three of these.

Successful proposals may adopt any appropriate research methods for achieving the study goal, including integration of knowledge and practices from the arts or humanities.

In addition to access to AHRC’s BRAID (Bridging Responsible AI Divides) programme network and activities, funded applicants will benefit from cohort networking events designed to connect them with third-party, non-academic organisations that may present opportunities for future collaboration, exploration and demonstration of study findings.

You must outline a clear vision for how the work proposed will deliver a sustainable legacy beyond the funding period of this award, regardless of whether additional funding is available.

Responsible AI demonstrators

Subject to UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funding commitments, we expect to fund a later round of ‘demonstrator’ projects that will leverage outcomes from projects funded in this round to enable expansion and further research interventions.

The vision for a future funding opportunity on responsible AI demonstrators is to promote responsible and ethical innovation, including the capture and dissemination of best practice, through the development and analysis of live projects in real-world settings. The ambition is to demonstrate the transformative power of embedding responsible, human-centred approaches and thinking at the earliest stages of the AI R&D pipeline, and across the AI lifecycle.

Demonstrators will bring together commercial, business-led or public and third sector challenges relating to AI governance or practice with technical knowledge and expertise and specialists in AI ethics to co-design and deliver jointly owned research plans.

Funding from UKRI will help organisations to understand, manage, and responsibly govern risks that are inherent to AI technologies by testing different responsible and ethical tools or approaches in real-world conditions. This will enable new and innovative approaches to be piloted with the aim of improving contextual or general performance and societal outcomes.

For more information on the background of this opportunity, go to the additional information section.

Duration

The duration of this award is six months.

Projects must start by 1 February 2024.

Funding available

The Full Economic Cost (FEC) of your project can be up to £312,500.

We will fund 80% of the FEC of the grant application.

What we will fund

The following costs are eligible:

• investigator salaries, including international and non-academic co-investigator salaries
• events and workshops to explore and co-develop research agendas, undertake horizon scanning or other preparatory engagement
• travel, subsistence and other justifiable engagement costs, for example,. paying speakers or reimbursing non-project individuals for their time to attend workshops/events (including publics where appropriate)
• short-term/and specific training and capacity building (for example skills-based or introductory courses)
• project support, for example, research staff, consumables, marketing and communications, and other costs associated with delivering the award including project management and administrative support

Note that the combined costs for non-UK and non-academic co-investigators must not exceed 30% of the total FEC of the grant application.

What we will not fund

Single disciplinary teams are out of scope for this opportunity.

In order for a proposal to be eligible to be submitted to us,the majority of the research, i.e., the main focus of its research questions and problems, must lie within the arts and humanities. We will not fund proposals that do not have at least 51% of their remit within AHRC. Please see the full list of AHRC’s remit and proposal disciplines from page 97 of the AHRC Research Funding Guide.

Additional funding conditions

Projects funded through this opportunity will be expected to work with the AHRC Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) programme, including the programme directors and other grant holders. For more information please see the ‘additional information’ section.

Supporting skills and talent

We encourage you to follow the principles of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and the Technician Commitment.

International collaboration

If your application includes international applicants, project partners or collaborators, visit Trusted Research for more information on effective international collaboration.

Find out about getting funding for international collaboration.

How to apply

We are running this funding opportunity on the new UKRI Funding Service. You cannot apply on the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system.

The project lead is responsible for completing the application process on the Funding Service, but we expect all team members and project partners to contribute to the application.

Only the lead research organisation can submit an application to UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

To apply:

1. Select ‘Start application’ near the beginning of this page.
2. Confirm you are the project lead.
3. Sign in or create a Funding Service account. To create an account, select your organisation, verify your email address, and set a password. If your organisation is not listed, email support@funding-service.ukri.org.
4. Answer questions directly in the text boxes. You can save your answers and come back to them or work offline and return to copy and paste your answers. All questions and assessment criteria are listed in the ‘How to apply’ section on this Funding finder page.
5. Send the completed application to your research office for checking. They will return it to you if it needs editing.
6. Your research office will submit the completed and checked application to UKRI.

Watch our research office webinars about the new UKRI Funding Service.

Deadline

We must receive your application by 5 October 2023 at 4:00pm UK time.

You will not be able to apply after this time.

You should ensure you are aware of and follow any internal institutional deadlines that may be in place.

General text on processing personal data:

AHRC, as part of UKRI, will need to collect some personal information to manage your funding service account and the registration of your funding applications.

We will handle personal data in line with UK data protection legislation and manage it securely. For more information, including how to exercise your rights, read our privacy notice.

General text on outcomes publication:

AHRC, as part of UKRI, will publish the outcomes of this funding Opportunity at: Board and Panel Outcomes.

If your application is successful, some personal information will be published via the UKRI Gateway to Research.

UKRI Funding Service: section guidance

Summary

In plain English, provide a summary that can be sent to potential reviewers to determine if your proposal is within their field of expertise.

This summary may be made publicly available on external facing websites, so please ensure it can be understood by a variety of readers, for example:

• Opinion-formers
• Policymakers
• The general public.
• The wider research community.

Succinctly describe your proposed work in terms of:

• Its context.
• The challenge the project addresses and how it will be applied to this.
• Its aims and objectives.
• Its potential applications and benefits.

Word count: 500

Core Team

List the key members of your team and assign them roles from the following:

• project lead (PL)
• project co-lead (UK) (PcL)
• project co-lead (international) (PcL (I))
• specialist
• grant manager
• professional enabling staff
• research and innovation associate
• technician
• visiting researcher

Only list one individual as project lead.

Find out more about UKRI new grant roles.

Section: Vision

Question: What are you hoping to achieve with your proposed work?

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Explain how your proposed work:

• is of excellent quality and importance within or beyond the fields or areas
• has the potential to advance current understanding, generates new knowledge, thinking or discovery within or beyond the field or area
• is timely given current trends, context and needs
• impacts world-leading research, society, the economy or the environment
• informs future research or interventions in the space of responsible AI

Within the Vision section we also expect you to:

• identify the potential direct or indirect benefits and who the beneficiaries might be

Word count 500

Section: Approach

Question: How are you going to deliver your proposed work?

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Explain how you have designed your approach so that it:

• is effective and appropriate to achieve your objectives
• is feasible, and comprehensively identifies any risks to delivery and how they will be managed
• if applicable, uses a clear and transparent methodology
• if applicable, summarises the previous work and describes how this will be built upon and progressed
• will maximise translation of outputs into outcomes and impacts
• describes how your, and if applicable your team’s, research environment (in terms of the place, its location, and relevance to the project) will contribute to the success of the work

Within the approach section we also expect you to:

• consider issues of equality, diversity and inclusion both in relation to the composition of the project team and framing of the research itself
• demonstrate plans for appropriate engagement of relevant sectors of the UK AI landscape
• actively support the development of a responsible AI ecosystem within this context that extends beyond traditional academic boundaries, explaining how the different disciplines add value

Word count: 2,500

Section: Your Organisation’s Support

Question: Provide details of support from your research organisation.

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Provide a statement of support from your research organisation detailing why the proposed work is needed.

The committee will be looking for a strong statement of commitment from your research organisation.

We recognise that in some instances, this information may be provided by the research office, the Technology Transfer Office (TTO) or equivalent, or a combination of both.

You must also include the following details:

• a significant person’s name and their position, from the TTO or research office, or both
• office address or web link

Word count: 1,000

Section: Project Partners: Contributions

Question: Provide details about any project partners’ contributions using the template provided.

What the assessors are looking for in your response

If you do not have any project partners, simply add ‘N/A’ into the text box, mark this section as complete and move to the next section.

If you do have project partners, download and complete the project partner contributions template (DOCX, 52KB) then copy and paste the table within it into the text box below.

Ensure you have obtained prior agreement from Project Partners that, should you be offered funding, they will support your project as indicated in the template.

Word count: 500

Section: Project Partners: Letters (or emails) of Support

Question: Upload a single PDF containing the letters or emails of support from each partner you named in the table in the previous ‘Contributions’ section.

What the assessors are looking for in your response

If you do not have any project partners, simply add ‘N/A’ into the text box, mark this section as complete and move to the next section.

If you have named project partners in the previous ‘contributions’ section, enter the words ‘attachment supplied’ in the text box below.

Each letter or email you provide should:

• confirm the partner’s commitment to the project
• clearly explain the value, relevance and possible benefits of the work to them
• describe any additional value that they bring to the project
• please refer to AHRC’s guide for more guidance.

Please do not provide letters of support from host and co-investigator’s research organisations.

Unless specifically requested, please do not include any personal data within the attachment.

Upload details are provided within the service on the actual application.

For audit purposes, UKRI requires formal collaboration agreements to be put in place if an award is made.

Word count: 5

Section: Applicant and Team Capability to Deliver

Question: Why are you the right individual or team to successfully deliver the proposed work?

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Evidence of how you, and if relevant your team, have:

• the relevant experience (appropriate to career stage) to deliver the proposed work
• the right balance of skills and expertise to cover the proposed work
• the appropriate leadership and management skills to deliver the work and your approach to develop others
• contributed to developing a positive research environment and wider community

The word count for this section is 1500 words, 1000 words to be used for R4RI modules and, if necessary, a further 500 words for Additions.

Use the Résumé for Research and Innovation (R4RI) format to showcase the range of relevant skills you, and if relevant your team (investigators, researchers, other (technical) staff for example research software engineers, data scientists and so on, and partners), have. show how this will help to deliver the proposed work.

You can include individuals’ specific achievements but only choose past contributions that best evidence their ability to deliver this work.

Complete this section using the R4RI module headings listed. You should use each heading once and include a response for the whole team, see the UKRI guidance on R4RI. You should consider how to balance your answer and emphasise where appropriate the key skills each team member brings:

• contributions to the generation of new ideas, tools, methodologies, or knowledge
• the development of others and maintenance of effective working relationships
• contributions to the wider research and innovation community
• contributions to broader research or innovation users and audiences and towards wider societal benefit

Additions: Provide any further details relevant to your application. This section is optional and can be up to 500 words. You should not use it to describe additional skills, experiences or outputs, but you can use it to describe any factors that provide context for the rest of your R4RI (for example, details of career breaks if you wish to disclose them).

You should complete this as a narrative and you should avoid CV type format.

Word count: 1,500

Section: Data Management and Sharing

Question: How will you manage and share data collected or acquired through the proposed research?

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Provide a data management plan which should clearly detail how you will comply with UKRI’s published Data Sharing Policy which includes detailed guidance notes.

Word count: 500

Section: Ethics and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)

Question: What are the ethical or RRI implications and issues relating to the proposed work?

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Using the text box, demonstrate that you have identified and evaluated the relevant ethical or responsible research and innovation considerations, and how you will manage them.

If you are collecting or using data you should identify:

• any legal and ethical considerations of collecting, releasing or storing the data including consent, confidentiality, anonymisation, security and other ethical considerations and, in particular, strategies taken to not preclude further reuse of data
• formal information standards with which study will be compliant

Word count: 1,000

Section: Resources and Cost Justification

Question: What will you need to deliver your proposed work and how much will it cost?

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Use the resources and cost summary table to enter the full costs. Include high-level costs only, not a breakdown of individual items. Use the Justification textbox to demonstrate how the resources you anticipate needing for your proposed work:

• are comprehensive, appropriate, and justified
• represent the optimal use of resources to achieve the intended outcomes
• maximise potential outcomes and impacts

This section should not simply be a list of the resources requested, as this will already be given in the detailed ‘costs’ table. Costings should be justified on the basis of full economic costs (FEC) of the project, not just on the costs expected from UKRI. For some items we do not expect you to justify the monetary value, rather the type of resource, such as amount of time or type of staff requested.

Where you do not provide adequate justification for a resource, we may deduct it from any funding awarded.

You should identify:

• support for activities to either increase impact, for public engagement, knowledge exchange or to support responsible innovation
• support for access to facilities, infrastructure or procurement of equipment
• support for preserving, long-term storage, or sharing of data
• support from your organisation or partner organisations and how that enhances value for money

Word count: 1,000

How we will assess your application

Assessment process

We will assess your application using the following process.

Assessment Panel

Following an office check stage to ensure each application meets eligibility and funding opportunity requirements, a panel of subject and sector specialists will collectively review your application against the criteria and rank it alongside other applications. After which, the panel will make a funding recommendation.

We reserve the right to use the recommendations to create a balanced portfolio of projects, considering the diversity of teams, research themes, and geographies in that process. We strongly recommend that you read the background information below to ensure your proposal meets the assessment criteria.

Principles of assessment

We support the San Francisco declaration on research assessment (DORA) and recognise the relationship between research assessment and research integrity.

Find out about the UKRI Principles of Assessment and Decision Making.

We reserve the right to modify the assessment process as needed.

Assessment criteria

The criteria we will assess your application against are listed under the ‘Questions and criteria’ heading in the ‘How to apply’ section.

Section: Vision

Have the applicants demonstrated how the work they are proposing:

• is of excellent quality and importance within or beyond the fields or areas
• has the potential to advance current understanding, generates new knowledge, thinking or discovery within or beyond the field or area
• is timely given current trends, context and needs
• will impact world-leading research, society, the economy or the environment
• informs future research or interventions in the space of responsible AI

Section: Approach

Have the applicants demonstrated that they have designed their approach so that it:

• is effective and appropriate to achieve their objectives
• is feasible, and comprehensively identifies any risks to delivery and how they will be managed
• if applicable, uses a clear and transparent methodology
• if applicable, summarises the previous work and describes how this will be built upon and progressed
• will maximise translation of outputs into outcomes and impacts
• describes how their, and if applicable their team’s, research environment (in terms of the place, its location and relevance to the project) will contribute to the success of the proposed work

Section: Applicant and Team Capability to Deliver

Have the applicants provided evidence of how they, and if relevant their team, have:

• the relevant experience (appropriate to career stage) to deliver the proposed work
• the right balance of skills and expertise to cover the proposed work
• the appropriate leadership and management skills to deliver the work and their approach to develop others
• contributed to developing a positive research environment and wider community

Section: Resources and Cost Justification

Have the applicants demonstrated how the resources they anticipate needing for their proposed work:

• are comprehensive, appropriate, and justified
• represent the optimal use of resources to achieve the intended outcomes
• maximise potential outcomes and impacts

Section: Ethics and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)

Have the applicants identified and evaluated the relevant ethical or responsible research and innovation considerations, and how they will be managed.

Contact details

Get help with your application

For help on costings and writing your application, contact your research office. Allow enough time for your organisation’s submission process.

Ask about this funding opportunity

Email: support@funding-service.ukri.org

We aim to respond to emails within 2 working days.

Phone: 01793 547490

Our phone lines are open:

• Monday to Thursday 8:30am to 5:00pm
• Friday 8:30am to 4:30pm

Sensitive information

If you, or a key team member, need to tell us something you wish to remain confidential, email the Funding Service helpdesk on support@funding-service.ukri.org. You must include in the subject line: <AHRC (name of opportunity), sensitive info, Funding Service application number>

Typical examples of confidential information include:

• applicant is unavailable until a certain date (for example due to parental leave)
• declaration of interest
• additional information about eligibility to apply that would not be appropriately shared in the Applicant and team capability section
• conflict of interest for UKRI to consider in reviewer or panel participant selection
• the application is an invited resubmission

For information about how UKRI handles personal data, see UKRI’s privacy notice.

Additional info

Background

Artificial Intelligence is one of the fastest growing transformative technologies globally, with the potential for wide-ranging impacts across all sectors of society and the economy. However, realising positive outcomes and maximising the benefit of AI to the economy and society relies as much upon public trust and acceptance to drive increased adoption and diffusion of new technologies as the technologies themselves.

Read the UKRI-Innovate blog, 2022: AI: using trust and ethics to accelerate adoption

Meanwhile, it is also fundamentally important to minimise or better still eliminate negative consequences of AI and related data-driven technologies, requiring significant advances in UK capacity and capability to design, develop, deploy and govern their on-going use in the most responsible and ethical ways

Read the Pew Research Centre article, 2021: Experts Doubt Ethical AI Design Will Be Broadly Adopted as the Norm Within the Next Decade

We are delighted to share this new blog post, discussing the importance of the arts and humanities to responsible AI, written by the BRAID Programme Directors Professors Ewa Luger and Shannon Vallor.

The National AI Strategy notes key differences between AI technologies and other tech and digital advancements in three areas:

• regulation, fairness and transparency
• infrastructure and systems;
• skills and commercialisation

This reflects the findings of the UKRI AI Review, Transforming our world with AI, which highlighted ‘delivering responsible AI’ as necessarily central to UKRI’s approach, and noted the interdisciplinary collaboration required to achieve it.

Our vision is to establish a responsible and ethical AI ecosystem that supports the UK’s transition to an AI-enabled economy, resulting in growth, prosperity, and mutual benefit for sectors and citizens.

We aim to draw on and connect existing UK strengths across the disciplinary and sectoral landscape to extend and deepen our capabilities in responsible and ethical AI, the programme will bring together research originating in the academy with the work of bodies involved in regulation and governance, as well as with commercial actors that are developing, deploying and employing them.

The ecosystem enabled by the programme will put stakeholders at the heart, with collaborative research informing regulation and standards which in turn support and incentivise responsible and ethical innovation in AI development, deployment and use. This will lead to a demonstrable increase in public understanding, trust and acceptance of AI.

This aligns with the National AI Strategy, delivering against:

• Pillar 1: investing in the long-term needs of the AI ecosystem
• Pillar 3: Getting the Governance Right.

It will specifically deliver on AHRC’s Strategic Delivery Plan Objective 4.4: Targeting national priorities, Priority 1: Drawing on human experiences to tackle today’s challenges.

The programme

Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) will connect the best cutting-edge research with the ‘back end’, to inform the regulations, standards and policies that govern AI, and the ‘front end’, to ensure that responsible approaches are reflected in industry practices around their design, development, deployment and on-going audit.

The Programme directors provide the vision for how the UK’s research strengths in responsible AI can support an environment in which responsible and ethical approaches to AI enable innovation, stimulate economic growth and deliver wider public benefit.

Amongst other activities they will:

• provide intellectual and strategic leadership, visibility and clarity of focus across the programme, with a focus on adding value to the existing landscape
• provide thought leadership for AHRC and UKRI on topics related to responsible AI
• identify and fill gaps in knowledge and skills necessary to further develop the AI ecosystem
• coordinate the programme, ensuring coherence across core activities as well as work delivered by partners and through future programme funding opportunities
• support AHRC with the development, delivery, and evaluation of programme opportunities

Reporting

Some reporting will be required for projects funded through this programme (proportionate to award size). The details around this will be confirmed to successful applicants, but will include information such as jobs created and number of people engaged.

Data sharing

Successful projects will be required to work with the Programme Directors for Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID).

The programme directors for Responsible AI Ecosystem will:

• connect the funded projects with each other
• enable access to the programme’s network and activities
• provide funded applicants with opportunities for cohort networking events

The following details of the successful projects will be shared for the above purposes:

• project lead name and contact email
• project co-lead name and contact email
• project partner name and contact email
• case for support

How we will use your personal data

The personal data you give us will be used to facilitate the Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) programme through sharing applicant’s contact details with the programme directors and the principal investigators of the other successful projects for collaboration and communication purposes as described above.

Your personal data will be handled in line with UK data protection legislation and managed securely. If you would like to know more, including how to exercise your rights, please see our privacy notice.

Webinar for potential applicants

We held a webinar on 28 June 2023 at 2pm. This provided more information about the opportunity and a chance to ask questions.

Webinar question and answers document (PDF, 119KB)

BRAID launch event

The launch event for the BRAID programme will take place on 15 September 2023 online from 1pm to 5:30pm UK time.

We are delighted to invite you to join the event online via a livestream webinar.

Register for the launch event via eventbrite and choosing ‘Get Tickets’.

The event

Our keynote speaker is Dr Rumman Chowdhury, Chief Scientist of Parity Consulting and a Responsible AI Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

Previously, Dr Chowdhury was the Director of the META (ML Ethics, Transparency, and Accountability) team at Twitter, leading a team of applied researchers and engineers to identify and mitigate algorithmic harms on the platform. Prior to Twitter, she was CEO and founder of Parity AI.

Other distinguished speakers for the day include scholars, artists, policymakers and industry leaders from across the responsible AI ecosystem. Our panels will explore:

• lessons learned from the ‘first-wave’ of responsible AI in the UK and abroad
• the new voices that must be amplified and empowered in the responsible AI ecosystem
• the role of the arts and humanities in the future of AI

The overarching theme for the day is the bridges that must be built to connect and strengthen the many different communities of responsible AI knowledge and practice. The main programme will be recorded and livestreamed to an online audience

Updates

• 7 September 2023
  Added 'BRAID launch event' information under 'Additional info' section.
• 6 July 2023
  Webinar question and answer document added under 'Additional info' section.
• 22 June 2023
  Updated text in the 'section: your organisation’s support' under 'how to apply. Also added a new blog link 'importance of the arts and humanities to responsible AI' under 'additional info'.