The Institute for AI (IAI) is pleased to launch its third interdisciplinary seed grant program for this fiscal year. Our aim is to seed multi-disciplinary teams of IAI faculty with resources so that they can execute inter-disciplinary research projects that can lead to large extramural research grants. Please note the following:

• Your proposed project should align with one or more of these five convergence themes and center on use-inspired AI innovations in your fields.
• Teams should include at least two eligible IAI faculty members from different home units. UGA faculty who are classified as core with IAI or completed the data collection questionnaire are eligible to participate.
• Each IAI faculty member may lead (serve as PI on) at most one proposal, and may be listed on at most two proposals in total, including any proposal they lead.
• All compensated investigators on a team must be IAI faculty members. Collaborators who are not IAI are allowed but must not receive compensation through this grant.
• IAI will allocate up to $30,000 for each project, and additionally
• Cost share commitments are required. A $2,000 cost share is required for each IAI faculty member listed on a proposal, documented by a commitment from that faculty's home unit.
• Cost share is in addition to the IAI award, and your budget should reflect both. For example, a team of three IAI faculty may budget up to $36,000 ($30,000 from IAI plus $6,000 in cost share).
• Awarded funds must be spent during FY27 (expenditures should be made by June 30, 2027).

Milestones

The Institute for AI is again making two resources available to facilitate project execution.

OpenAI API Usage Credits: In addition to the above amount, a project can optionally request up to $2,000 in OpenAI API usage credits. These credits are administered directly through IAI's OpenAI API gateway, which provides access to all OpenAI models. Please consult this guidance on OpenAI's API pricing and justify the requested amount.

AI Compute Resources: Additionally, investigators on all awarded projects will be given priority access to the state-of-the-art high-performance AI compute cluster in GACRC for their batch compute needs. The priority access will last for the duration of the project.

The funds will be transferred to the home unit of the principal investigator on each successful team and will be further administered by this unit. IAI is unable to administer the awarded grants. Awarded funds are targeted to be available in mid-November 2026.

IAI will conduct the competition to award the seed grants in two rounds:

Round 1: Submit a letter of intent (LoI)

We request a 1-page letter of intent using the template provided for each project. Our aim is to get an initial sense of how many applications to expect. The LoI must certify that all paid faculty on the team are with IAI, that the team observes the proposal participation limits above, that the heads of all units involved in the project (or the investigators committing cost share from their own accounts) are aware of the cost share, and that the proposed project is not currently under review or funded via internal or external grants. We will contact the PI of each team submitting a LoI with an encourage or discourage recommendation, and discuss any perceived deficiencies, within about a week of the LoI deadline (by September 14, 2026).

Please submit your LoIs via UGA's InfoReady system by Monday, September 7, 2026.

Round 2: Submit a full proposal

We request full proposals from teams that submitted a LoI in round 1. The following documents are required:

Project Description

1. The project description can be up to 5 pages. Please follow NSF guidelines for formatting. The following sections are required:
2. Title of the project and a listing with department and college affiliation of all faculty and unpaid collaborators involved in the project. (All PIs and Co-PIs must be IAI faculty or should have applied to be IAI faculty at the time of submission. Additional collaborators are allowed.)
3. Objectives and significance of the project. (This section should emphasize both short term and long term goals that align with the IAI convergence themes and why the IAI should be funding the project.)
4. Proposed research organized under specific aims or thrusts. (The aims or thrusts should be supported by a timeline of funded activities and milestones that ends June 30, 2027.)
5. Personnel roles, responsibilities, and expertise. (Emphasize how each team member will tangibly contribute to the project.)
6. External funding opportunities. (List relevant extramural grant funding opportunities and how the seed grant will help prepare a competitive proposal for the opportunity.)
7. References. (Maximum 1 page. This does not count towards the above page limit.)

Budget and Budget Justification

• The budget and the budget justification are separate documents from the project description and do not count toward its page limit. Please use the budget and budget justification template available in InfoReady. The budget justification is limited to 1 page.
• Funds may be used in customary ways to support research, including salary support of key personnel (faculty summer salary capped at 0.5 month) and, in particular, for graduate student stipends.
• These funds may not be used to organize conferences, to support external collaborators, or for course buyouts. Travel in support of the project is allowed, including travel to present work resulting from this project at conferences; a total travel budget exceeding $2,000 is discouraged. Your budget should be inclusive of all cost share amounts.
• Please do not include the OpenAI API credits in the itemized budget, but do include and justify them in the budget justification.

Letters of Commitment

Include a letter of commitment from each unit head providing cost-share funding, for the combined amount that unit owes (number of IAI fellows from that unit on the project × $2,000). Where several team members share a home unit, a single letter from that unit head covering the combined amount is sufficient.

Cost share may be met with direct support of project activities as well as with cash. Support of a graduate research assistant (RA) working on this project counts toward cost share; teaching assistant (TA) support does not. An investigator may also commit the $2,000 from their own accounts (e.g., startup or foundation funds) in place of a unit commitment, provided the letter identifies the account and confirms that the funds are dedicated to this project and no other project.

Submission and Review

Submit your proposal for consideration via UGA's InfoReady system by responding to the listed opportunity in InfoReady by October 7, 2026.

IAI will form a committee of experts to review the proposals, which will inform the final decision making by the Institute leadership. Review criteria will likely include the extent to which the application makes a clear and compelling case that:

• AI is a critical part of the project and the source of primary innovation.
• The seed funding benefits from and will create and/or strengthen collaborations between faculty within IAI.
• The resources (direct budget and otherwise) are appropriately allocated to project tasks and team members to complete the objectives within the time frame.
• The project will lead to at least one significant and competitive extramurally funded proposal.

IAI plans to complete its review by Friday, October 30, 2026, and announce award decisions in early November.

Expectations of Awardees

Teams that receive an award take on the following obligations. Awarded funds are targeted to be available in mid-November 2026 and are administered by the PI's home unit.

IAI will circulate the quad chart template and the final report format ahead of each deadline. Teams that anticipate difficulty meeting any of these deadlines should contact the associate director for research and outreach as early as possible.

We value your effort in making this seed grant program a success. We are grateful to the Office of the Provost and the Office of Research for funding this program. Please consider leveraging other seed grant opportunities to amplify the outcomes of IAI's seed grant. Please direct any questions to the associate director for research and outreach, Kyle Johnsen (kjohnsen@uga.edu).