Instruct-ERIC Opens Funding for AI Tool Development
A new funding call has been opened by Instruct-ERIC for technology development projects focused on AI tools for integrated structural biology. The initiative offers up to €30,000 per project to support the creation of AI that automates research tasks and enhances data analysis.
- Instruct-ERIC is a pan-European research infrastructure with 17 member countries and organizations, including Portugal, giving Portuguese researchers eligibility to apply for this funding. - This funding initiative follows the transformative impact of AI tools like AlphaFold, which has revolutionized the speed and accuracy of predicting protein structures since its 2021 launch by Google DeepMind and EMBL-EBI. - The deadline for applications for this specific Technology Development call is April 17, 2025, and proposals must be submitted online through the Instruct-ERIC portal. - This call is part of a broader R&D funding strategy by Instruct-ERIC, which also includes a separate R&D Pilot Award Scheme offering up to €15,000, specifically aimed at early-career researchers. - The ultimate goal for funded projects is for the developed AI tools and methodologies to be integrated into Instruct Centres, making them accessible to the wider European structural biology community. - The Technology Development call is a recurring, topic-specific initiative; the 2025 call awarded funding to projects on machine learning for image segmentation and intelligent cryo-electron microscopy targeting. - Instruct-ERIC operates under a specific legal framework known as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), which it was awarded in July 2017 to facilitate the establishment and operation of research infrastructures of European interest. - The organization has participated in several EU Horizon-funded projects, including EOSC-Life and EOSC-Future, to help build the European Open Science Cloud, focusing on data standards and improving the FAIRness of research data.
