Humanities & Artificial Intelligence Virtual Institute (HAVI)

  • Action type:
  • Opening date: 1 January 2026
  • Closing time: 13 March 2026 11:59 (America/New_York)
  • Budget per project: € 800 000
  • Project duration: Level I: 1 - 2 years ; Level II: 1 - 3 years
  • Official website

Scope

Schmidt Sciences is requesting proposals to the Humanities and AI Virtual Institute (HAVI), aimed at fostering research in the digital humanities with a particular focus on artificial intelligence. Ideal projects will have co-PIs with expertises from both the humanities and AI and will address research questions from both domains. This request is open to universities and non-profits globally.

Current AI models struggle with multilingual contexts, multimodal datasets, and the nuances of historical and cultural diversity, hindering their application in humanities disciplines. HAVI aims to address these limitations by fostering interdisciplinary collaborations between AI and humanities researchers, focused on developing and applying new AI techniques to answer complex and compelling humanities research questions.

Our approach expects humanities scholars to play integral roles in AI development, while AI researchers gain deeper understanding of data, models, and problem spaces from humanistic perspectives. This collaborative framework aims to produce breakthrough results that advance both AI capabilities and humanities scholarship.

Funding Levels

Applicants can apply for one of two funding levels:

Level I: $100,000 – $299,999

This level is aimed at new research projects without an established record of past success. It could be newly established collaborations or established teams, but the research is in an early stage. Activities at this Level I stage might include things like piloting new methods or developing prototypes. A successfully completed Level I project could be a candidate for future Level II funding.

Level II: $300,000 – $800,000

This level is aimed at scaling up and expanding mature projects. Applicants should be prepared to discuss the results of a previous planning or prototyping stage and how further funding will enable their project to reach its intended goals. (Note that Level II applicants do not have to have previous Level I funding from HAVI; but they should be able to demonstrate results from earlier stages of their research.)

Remarks

Informational Webinars:
January 20, 2026, 1PM EST. Register here.
February 24, 2026, 1PM EST. Register here.

New project idea for: Humanities & Artificial Intelligence Virtual Institute (HAVI)

Please fill out and submit the form below to register a new project idea for this funding opportunity. It will be published immediately but might be moderated by the Time Machine project scouting service at a later point.

Please describe your project idea. The limit is 3000 characters.

Please add any number of keywords related to your project idea.
1
Add keyword

Please select what you are mainly interested in finding for your project idea.

Please select your institution from the list of Time Machine members. Only members are eligible for participation.

Please add a short description for your institution so potential partners are aware of the context of the application. The limit is 3000 characters.

Please add your name so we can better contact you. This will not be published.

Please add your contact email address where potential partners can reach you. It will be publicly visible.

Please confirm your consent to the storage and use of the data entered in this form including your contact name and email address.

Related project ideas

There are no project ideas for this funding opportunity. To submit a project idea, please fill the form after clicking the "+" button above.