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.
New call for Language Sciences Incubator Fund, 1 April 2025
The Language Sciences Incubator Fund offers seed funding to supports innovative and interdisciplinary research in language sciences.
In this round, we are inviting AI-focused proposals related to our AI@Cam project “Improving Language Equity and Inclusion through AI”
Funding of up to £5,000 is available per project but we will consider larger funding requests for exceptional AI-focused projects.
Click here to access the Incubator Fund Application Form
Key dates
Please be aware we are entering the second year of the AI@Cam project, and the funding period is limited. All projects must be completed by the end of September 2026.
- This is a rolling call meaning you can apply at any time. Applications will be considered on submission.
- Projects should be completed within 12 months of the project start date, and no later than 30 September 2026.
- The final deadline for applications is 23:59 (midnight) on Sunday 21 December 2025. However, we encourage you to submit your application as early as possible rather than waiting until the deadline.
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 Isaac Newton Trust, Cambridge University School of Technology and Cambridge University Press and Assessment 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