Deadline: 8 July 2024
The European AI & Society Fund is pleased to invite applications for a new fellowship programme on Artificial Intelligence and market power to support investigative research and critical analysis into the political economy of large-scale AI systems and aims to sharpen the collective understanding of market concentration in the AI ecosystem.
Fellows will study so-called partnerships across the AI supply chain, get clarity on the emerging business models, expose new dependencies and effects of concentrated market power, and critically assess approaches presented as challenging concentration such as “open source” models and industrial policy interventions. The European AI & Society Fund will create opportunities for fellows to collaborate and learn from one another and the wider AI and society ecosystem, as well as support the dissemination of their outcomes.
The ambition is for the fellows’ investigations and research to inform the work of regulators including competition authorities, legislators, start-ups and other impacted businesses as they contend with market power dynamics in the complex ecosystem of large-scale AI. While this call for applications is issued by the European AI & Society Fund, they recognise that the nature of both the industry and the policy responses is global and invite proposals from all geographies.
Focus Areas
- Fellows will carry out investigative research and critical analysis on one or more of the following topics:
- The nature of the partnerships between firms developing large-scale AI and infrastructure actors.
- The business models of large-scale AI systems providers.
- The impacts of concentration and abuse of market power by incumbent firms on third-party application developers and business deployers.
- The avenues for challenging market power.
Funding Information
- The total budget for the fellowships is $500,000.
- Grant awards will be up to a maximum of $70,000. In exceptional circumstances, they will consider larger amounts.
Eligibility Criteria
- The Fellowship Programme welcomes applications from all countries and regions, with the exception of those subject to US sanctions.
- They seek to award fellowships to applicants with a broad diversity of skills, expertise and backgrounds.
- They particularly encourage applications from people with journalistic experience, with strong investigative skills including OSINT, as well as fluency in market and technical research.
- The Programme will award fellowships to individual investigators/researchers or interdisciplinary teams of up to 3 investigators/researchers with complementary skills.
- The individuals can be hosted by an institution or be independent actors.
For more information, visit European AI & Society Fund.
