Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Alternative Proteins

We are currently accepting applications for this RFP. The deadline for submission is on the RFP, as well the date we plan to notify applicants by. We’ll continue to accept applications after the deadline, but we cannot guarantee the availability of funds or the same application response time.  

We will consider any grant, small or large. However, we do not commonly fund grants larger than $25,000 USD. You are welcome to seek co-funders and we ask that you list additional sources of funding in the application. We may also approve an application contingent on additional funding if we are unable to fully support the project or meet the funding deficit.

Yes, but only applications from individuals/teams we deem qualified and with the skills needed to complete the proposed research will be considered.

For our current RFP, we will respond to applications submitted by October 4, 2024 by November 25th, 2024.

Grant proposals are evaluated by FSI’s AI and Machine Learning Advisors, a group of highly committed and experienced professionals with broad experience in AI, ML and Alternative Proteins. We work to avoid any conflicts of interest, and conflicted advisors will be recused. Scroll down to see who comprises the advisory group.

• We fund summer salaries for academics and hourly work for independent contractors, and will consider funding salaried work for researchers employed at non-profits. For academics that are funded on a project basis and independent contractors, we require the application submission include hourly rates and number of hours requested for each investigator involved in the project.

• We do not fund equipment purchases such as computers, phones, etc.

• We do fund purchases of necessary data sets.

• We can cover indirect/overhead costs if the grantee’s university requires it. If you are including indirect/overhead costs in your budget, please include supporting documentation stating any university required minimum for grants coming from non-profit organizations. If a university does not have a required minimum, we can cover up to a maximum of 10% of indirect costs. See complete indirect/overhead cost policies here.

All projects funded are for the public benefit. As such we encourage open access publication and wide distribution, and that work be licensed under a creative commons or similar license that would allow for derivative works.

Grantees are required to make all research results, methods, procedures, data, computer code and other materials accessible to the public for others to see, evaluate, and use for further R&D. 

Grantees must agree to interim reporting to identify progress and any potential or actual delays in completion of the work.  The nature and frequency of such reporting will be articulated on a grant by grant basis.

Any significant changes in how the funded project is conducted, including changes in team, timeline, project focus, or budget must have prior written FSI approval or further funding of the grant may be withheld, and granted funds may be required to be returned.

Grantees must use public repositories such as GitHub for code, Zenodo for data, Hugging Face for models and the Open Science Framework under a Creative Commons (CC0 or CC-BY) license. These materials and descriptions should include enough detail to allow replication of results.

After receiving approval of funding, we highly recommend that projects be preregistered with a full plan on an independent public registry such as GitHub or the Open Science Framework. Preregistration must include all details of the proposed work and how any analysis will be conducted.  The preregistered analyses must then be referenced in the final report including if a different or additional analysis method was used, and why.

Awarded funds may only be used for the purposes proposed in the grant application and agreed to as part of the grant.

Please be sure to review “What is your policy on transparency?” and “What are the technical requirements for transparency?” above. Additionally, at the conclusion of the project, grantees must write a short report on the project that’s available to the public and hosted on the FSI website. FSI strongly encourages publication of results in peer-reviewed scientific or professional journals where possible, and publication in open access journals with no paywall is ideal.

By accepting an FSI grant, all grantees agree to the following:

• The Grantee must comply with reasonable requests for information about research activities in a timely manner.

• The Grantee must comply with all FSI policies and procedures.

• The Grantee must provide the complete results (including intended and unintended learnings), and allow FSI to disseminate results in any way FSI sees fit (please review “What is your policy on transparency” and "What are my responsibilities for disseminating my project results?" above)

• The Grantee must keep records and account for all use of granted funds, and submit a detailed expense report following the completion of the funded project.

FSI reserves the right to terminate any funded research project that is not progressing in the manner agreed to in the granting application and agreement. Please be sure to review “What is your policy on transparency?” and "What are the technical requirements for transparency?" above.