Language Sciences Incubator Fund opens 21 November 2024

New call for Language Sciences Incubator Fund

Cambridge Language Sciences invites applications for the Language Sciences Incubator Fund, offering seed funding to support interdisciplinary research in the language sciences.

This round offers additional funding opportunities for AI-focused proposals. We have the following funding opportunities available:

• £10,000 in total for projects related to the core aim of the Language Sciences IRC of "strengthening research collaborations across disciplines"

• £27,000 in total for projects 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 would consider larger funding requests for exceptional AI-focused projects. 

Apply now

Click here to access the Incubator Fund Application Form

Key dates

• Call opens: 21 November 2024

• Application deadline: 9 February 2025

• Funding decision announced: March 2025

• Project completion deadline: 1 April 2026

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

What can you do with the funding?

With £5,000 you could…

• Employ a Research Assistant for 6 weeks via TES
• Fund 250 hours of data annotation at £20/hour
• Pay 200 study participants a £25 fee each
• Fund a knowledge-exchange studentship 

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. 

VIEW FULL ELIGIBILITY AND FUNDING CRITERIA

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.

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

VIEW FULL LIST OF PREVIOUS INCUBATOR FUND PROJECTS