The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society (RISTEX) of Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), are pleased to announce a joint call for proposals exploring the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies on society and the economy.

This call aims to foster collaboration between UK and Japanese social science, arts and humanities researchers around the theme of Artificial Intelligence and its impact on society. The call aims to promote interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research and to position the social sciences, arts and humanities as an integral part of the process for developing and exploring AI systems, and ensuring that those systems provide the greatest benefit to people and societies. Ultimately, the call aims to contribute towards the development of a platform for effective and sustained dialogue and engagement between a range of researchers and other relevant stakeholders, eventually leading to practical implementation and policy recommendations.

We welcome proposals that will look at the following thematic areas:

• Impacts on humans and society
• Economic implications, skills, work and education
• Transparency, responsibility, governance and ethics.

The total UK budget for this call will be £2 million. The total Japanese budget for this call will be ¥120 million. Together we expect to fund between five to seven joint proposals for a period of 3 years.

Closing Date: 17/07/2019

The call is now open and the deadline for applications is 17 July 2019. Successful awards will be announced in November 2019 and are expected to begin in January 2020.

More info here.