AHRC’s artificial intelligence (AI) research covers a wide range of arts and humanities disciplines.
AHRC is helping to grow the UK’s capability and capacity in AI by:
AHRC is currently supporting:
This is a three-year programme (2022 to 2025) that aims to create a virtuous circle which:
The programme aims to foster an AI ecosystem that supports the UK’s transition to an AI-enabled economy. This will result in growth, prosperity and mutual benefit for sectors and the public.
The programme will be led by a programme director in partnership with the Ada Lovelace Institute. Programme activities will harness the UK’s strengths in responsible AI, from humanities, arts and social sciences, through to engineering and computer science. This will:
The programme will include funds dedicated to:
This investment is part of the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) AI Programme, which is stimulating multi-disciplinary collaboration to strengthen the UK’s leading position in AI across the research and innovation landscape.
It is delivering the recommendations set out in the UKRI statement of opportunities on AI which are aligned to the government’s National AI Strategy.
Collaborative research fellowships and ethical AI demonstrators will be awarded through funding rounds in 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025.
This is a five-year research project in which the industrial revolution is explored with the resources of the information revolution.
It is devising powerful new data tools for working with archives at scale, using the 21st century’s most cutting-edge data science to reveal the impact of the most advanced technology of the 19th Century on lives and society.
The project is a collaboration between the:
Currently in its fourth year, the team have devised new methods in data science and AI that can be applied to historical resources, producing tools and software to analyse digitised collections at scale for the first time.
AHRC also supports AI research projects linked to the creative economy, such as MIMIC (2018 to 2021), a project run by teams at Goldsmiths College, Durham University and the University of Sussex, that created a platform for generating art and music using AI.
By building a thriving and inclusive environment for people from across sectors and disciplines to work together, we are helping to grow the UK’s capability and capacity in AI.
This research is supporting the development of the AI technologies of the future and as a technology that:
Programmes within AHRC’s AI portfolio also make important contributions to our organisational objectives.
This programme will address a key contemporary challenge in the sphere of AI and data ethics and regulation. It has been developed to align with the recommendations of the National AI Strategy.
We want the development and deployment of AI and related data-driven technologies to be responsible, ethical and accountable by default. This means that the regulations, standards and policies that govern them need to incentivise these practices in ways that:
We expect the programme to enable a step-change in how responsible and ethical approaches to AI and data-driven technologies are perceived and how they are applied to positively transform commercial, business-led and public-facing endeavours.
This programme is unlocking the potential of cultural assets through its radical model of collaboration and multidisciplinarity.
The project is devising new research methods to allow computational linguists and historians to track societal and cultural change in new ways. It is also producing its own historical findings, as well as releasing open source tools and methods that can be reused not only for digital research in the humanities, but also in other fields.
For example, the project released Structured Timeline of Passenger Stations in Great Britain (StopsGB), a dataset of 12,000 geolocated rail stations. This will be a key resource for future research on the impact of the rail system in Great Britain.
The dataset is available on the British Library research repository. Through its extensive digitisation effort, the project has also made a major contribution to a set of one million ‘free to view’ out of copyright newspapers through the British Newspaper Archive.
A collaborative exhibition at Leeds City Museum in summer 2022 will incorporate key themes and early findings and outcomes from the project, raising public awareness of how digital research in the humanities can enhance understanding of history.
The team has also co-authored a short book, to be published in late 2022, sharing the lessons gained from undertaking a large, highly collaborative project at the interface between history, data science and cultural heritage.
This book will form part of the project’s legacy. It also complements ongoing engagement with the wider digital humanities sector through educational sessions and workshops aiming to improve training and understanding of digital humanities in the UK.
You can apply for a standard research grant at any time.
Standard (sometimes known as ‘responsive’) funding opportunities are open to a wide range of research and approaches within AHRC’s remit.
There are opportunities to explore arts and humanities research related to artificial intelligence within AHRC’s standard mode funding, such as networking grants, large research grants and fellowships. All of these operate without formal deadlines so proposals can be submitted at any time.
Email: ai.design@ahrc.ukri.org
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Last updated: 5 January 2024
