AI Humanities Sandpits

AI Humanities Sandpits: Canada, UK and US

Supports Canadian, United Kingdom, and United States teams building responsible AI methods through humanities-grounded innovation work.

⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.

The AI Humanities Sandpits: Canada, UK and US programme is a trilateral initiative co-funded by AHRC and EPSRC (UK) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada, supporting invited researchers to develop AI evaluation frameworks and humanities-based methodologies for AI design. The programme originated from a February 2026 workshop held in Montreal, with participant invitations issued following that event. US-based team members are eligible to participate but are funded through UK or Canadian budgets, as no dedicated US funder participates in this call.

The total fund is £1,160,000 split between the two countries: £780,000 for UK awards and a separate CAD $1,000,000 for Canadian awards administered by SSHRC. UK awards are up to £156,250 full economic cost per project, with AHRC funding 80% and the host institution covering 20%. Canadian awards are up to CAD $200,000 per project. Projects must commence by 1 October 2026 and complete by 30 April 2028, giving an 18-month duration. The UK application deadline was 28 May 2026.

Research scope centres on three areas: building evaluation frameworks and benchmarks for AI interpretive capabilities, developing adapted training and fine-tuning approaches informed by humanities scholarship, and embedding humanities methodologies into AI design pipelines. The scheme requires genuine collaboration between humanities and arts researchers and technical AI researchers. UK project leads must be based at a UKRI-eligible research organisation. The invite-only format and tight timeframes mean this cohort has closed; the trilateral model may recur given the AHRC and SSHRC strategic alignment.