The Language Sciences Incubator Fund is a small grants fund designed to foster innovative and interdisciplinary research in the language sciences.
Since the Incubator Fund was established in 2016, over £120,000 of seed funding has been awarded across 44 projects.
As well as the opportunity to develop new ideas, collaborations and approaches, Incubator Fund projects can provide proof of concept or evidence of collaboration for larger grant applications.
Other positive outcomes include knowledge exchange studentships, publications, fellowships and further career opportunities for researchers involved.
Please join our mailing list for updates on future funding opportunities.
Language Sciences Incubator Fund, 27 November 2025
Cambridge Language Sciences invites applications for the Language Sciences Incubator Fund, offering seed funding of up to £5,000 per project to support interdisciplinary research in the language sciences.
Applications are now closed.
A blank version of the form can also be downloaded here.
We have the following funding opportunities available:
1. Interdisciplinary Research in Language Sciences
£10,000 in total for projects related to the core aim of the Language Sciences IRC of "strengthening research collaborations across disciplines"
Key details:
- Up to £5,000 per project
- Application deadline: Sunday 8 February 2026
- Funding decision announced: March 2026
- Project completion deadline: April 2027
2. Language Equity & Inclusion through AI (EquILL-AI)
£25,000 in total for projects related to our AI@Cam project “Improving language equity and inclusion through AI”
Key details:
- Up to £5,000 per project (larger requests considered for outstanding AI proposals)
- Rolling call – applications can be considered on submission for projects that need to start before 1st March 2026
- Application deadline: Sunday 8 February 2026
- Project completion deadline: September 2026
About the Incubator Fund
The Language Sciences Incubator Fund is an opportunity to:
- Develop new ideas and collaborations
- Run pilot studies that could lead to larger grants
- Gain quick access to initial funding
- Kickstart novel research ideas
We particularly welcome projects which:
- Promote interdisciplinary exchange and collaboration
- Address emerging themes
- Develop novel methodological approaches or tools
- Are likely to lead to the development of further research grant proposals
Travel costs, event or workshop organisation are not supported by this scheme. API or computation fees for commercial tools (e.g. API access for large language models) will not be funded under this scheme unless it is clearly explained why existing university resources (e.g. the HPC cluster) or freely available models (e.g. hugging face) are insufficient or inaccessible.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the School of Arts and Humanities and School of Technology in supporting this programme.
Who can apply?
The fund is open to all researchers at the University of Cambridge, and proposals should include co-applicants from at least two different research groups.
You will apply for this funding directly from Cambridge Language Sciences. You do not have to go through your faculty research office.
Previous successful applicants include early-career researchers, established academics and graduate students from:
- Education
- Computer Science and Technology
- Engineering
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit
- Psychology
- Theoretical and Applied Linguistics
- Archaeology
- English
- Law
We welcome external collaborators. However, the lead applicant should be Cambridge University based. Postdoctoral researchers will need a supporting letter from their supervisor.
VIEW FULL ELIGIBILITY AND FUNDING CRITERIA
Previous grant holders have said...
“The Incubator Fund fills an important gap between conceptualisation of an idea and a fully-fledged larger grant proposal or fellowship application.” - Dr Margreet Vogelzang, Theoretical and Applied Linguistics
“The Language Sciences Incubator Fund enabled us to make progress on an exciting project that would have taken much longer if we had pursued more traditional routes, such as UKRI funding.” - Prof. Andreas Vlachos, Computer Science and Technology
“The Language Sciences Incubator Fund has been key in kickstarting our research using machine learning and natural language processing to analyse court decisions.” - Dr Felix Steffek, Faculty of Law