The British Academy is pleased to announce the recipients of seven new Innovation Fellowships, as part of a unique strategic partnership with the AHRC-funded Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) programme.
This exciting and timely strategic partnership aims to leverage diverse insights and connect a range of stakeholders to help build the expertise, capacity, and resources required to address complex problems within today’s digital society and responsible AI ecosystem.
The new cohort of Innovation Fellows will support crucial policy and regulatory work across several key government departments and agencies. This work will advance our understanding and drive the responsible implementation of digital technologies across key sectors of the UK’s economy and society, with a specific focus on AI.
The fellowships are part of the Academy’s Route B: Policy-Led (Digital Society) scheme, which enables a select group of researchers to undertake 12-month projects in collaboration with policymakers in central government.
The partnership also provides the cohort of Innovation Fellows unique access to opportunities within BRAID’s own fellowship programme, which includes 17 researchers collaborating with various technology companies, start-ups, research institutes, advocacy groups, volunteer organisations, public bodies, and cultural institutions.
Our host departments for this year’s cohort of Innovation Fellows are the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the AI Policy Directorate (AIPD) and AI Security Institute (AISI) at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (DRCF), and Ofcom.
Areas of research covered by the fellowships include:
- supporting local economies through digital innovation
- supporting creative rights in the age of AI
- building trust in AI through regulation and guidelines
- enhancing national security and public welfare in the age of cyber-attacks
- safeguarding online users through regulation and auditing
- restoring trust in media
Host departments have co-designed the scope of each Innovation Fellowship to align with their policy and regulatory priorities. The cohort of Fellows will also contribute to the British Academy’s Digital Society programme and support BRAID’s aim to bridge gaps between academia, industry, policy, and regulatory work on Responsible AI.
This initiative is supported by funding from the UK Government's Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT) and the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
The Innovation Fellowships – Route B: Policy-led (Digital Society), in collaboration with Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID), supported by DSIT and AHRC 2024-25 awardees are:
Partner Organisation: Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)
Dr Sophie Frost
IF24RBDS2\240100
University for the Creative Arts
£64,101.60
'Fostering economic growth across the UK through digital innovation in DCMS sectors'
The central area that the Fellow will be working on is fostering economic growth across the UK through digital innovation in DCMS Sectors. Closely aligning with the new government’s mission to kickstart economic growth, research could look to explore:
- The role of DCMS sectors in contributing to the current and potential economic growth of different regions and cities across the UK, and how the activity of creative businesses, our cultural institutions and the visitor economy interacts with other 8 sectors to foster a ‘growth-rich’ environment, particularly in the digital sphere and with the advent of new technologies using AI.
- The economic challenges or limitations associated with different place typologies, and the potential for DCMS sectors to mitigate these. This includes considerations of how and where digital innovations can play a role in reducing these barriers.
- Where different regions and cities hold comparative advantage with respect to different DCMS sector and sub-sector activity, particularly in relation to digital innovation, which could be built on further to help drive growth within local economies.
Dr Richard Osbourne
IF24RBDS2\240064
University of Glasgow
£88,821.26
'AI, Intellectual Property (IP) and the Creative Industries'
The Fellow working with DCMS will conduct research on topics such as:
- AI and the creative and media industries: exploring the scope and scale of risks and opportunities generative AI poses for the creative industries, and the arguments for government intervention.
- Generative AI, IP, and the Creative and Media Industries: conducting literature reviews and live monitoring of international approaches to policy, regulation, pertinent litigation and developments (including text and data mining, copyright, licensing, watermarking, personality rights, and deep fakes).
- Horizon scanning for innovative regulatory frameworks, digital solutions and policy approaches to address the emerging challenges and opportunities at the intersection of AI, intellectual property, and innovation in the UK's evolving digital economy.
- Understanding and modelling generative AI’s impacts on pay and availability of work across creative sub-sectors and career pathways.
- Understanding how the use of generative AI by creators contributes to the creative process (including whether it increases efficiency in producing outputs, and how creatives are using AI).
Partner Organisation: Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) – AI Policy Directorate (AIPD)
Dr Natalie Leesakul
IF24RBDS2\240118
University of Nottingham
£106,703.89
'The effect of regulating AI on business and consumer adoption'
The Fellowship will be working with, and alongside, policymakers and analysts to shape the Government’s response to AI. The central topic that Fellows will be working on is on understanding the effect of regulating AI on business and consumer adoption.
The Fellow, working with DSIT, will conduct research on topics such as:
- The social and economic impacts of AI harms like discrimination, bias and fairness.
- The barriers to adoption and what policies have been proven to address them in the UK, internationally, and in other sectors.
- The extent to which different types of regulation will lead to increased adoption, perhaps by boosting trust in AI and increasing clarity on how to use AI.
Partner Organisation: Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) – AI Safety Institute (AISI)
Professor Jack Stilgoe
IF24RBDS2\240094
University College London
£93,865.66
'Government’s approach to AI safety'
The Fellowship will be working with and alongside policymakers and AI researchers/engineers to shape the Government’s approach to AI safety. Fellows can work on a broad range of topics, with the overall aim being to equip governments with an empirical understanding of the safety of advanced AI systems and their impacts on people and society.
The Fellow working with AISI will conduct research on topics such as:
- Monitoring the fast-moving landscape of AI development
- Evaluating the risks AI poses to national security and public welfare
- Advancing the field of systemic safety to improve societal resilience
Partner Organisation: Digital Regulation and Cooperation Forum (DRCF) – 2 awards
Dr Stergios Aidinlis
IF24RBDS2\240033
Durham University
£72,495.18
Dr Yiquan Gu
IF24RBDS2\240112
University of Reading
£119,717.60
'AI Regulation and Auditing'
The DRCF aims to build a gateway for a wide range of cutting-edge AI and digital research. The Fellows working with DRCF will conduct research on topics such as:
- Protecting people online through developing an in-depth understanding of frontier technology use, the consumer online journey, AI and digital touchpoints. Developing this understanding through cutting edge research will aid regulators in their identification of current and potential AI harms.
- Helping to promote the safe adoption and growth of frontier technologies. Through our research we are developing an understanding of how firms have adopted AI technology, how those technologies are being used, and gathering views on the role for regulators to assist in the safe adoption of AI.
- Developing an understanding of the third-party algorithmic auditing market. By conducting market research and interviewing auditors we can better understand their auditing tools, practices and principles, as well as the demand for their services.
Partner Organisation: Ofcom
Dr Pieter Verdegem
IF24RBDS2\240038
University of Westminster
£94,286.06
'How AI impacts on public trust about information'
The Fellow working with Ofcom will conduct research on topics such as:
- An assessment of the actual vs perceived current use of AI within the media industries, and the extent to which its use is being questioned, modified, rejected by the workforces within these industries, and for what reasons.
- What kinds of media literacy/critical understanding are needed to navigate AI-generated information, including news content.
- What is the impact of AI-generated information upon levels of trust in news content, especially in relation to potentially susceptible groups.
Please note: The institution is that given at the time of application.