Stanford Impact Labs Social Science, Supercharged: Fast Grants for AI-Enabled Research
Stanford Impact Labs funds projects using frontier AI to advance and scale social science research through novel methods, tools, or institutional models.
Funder: Stanford University
Due Dates: June 30, 2026 (Applications due)
Funding Amounts: Up to $25,000 for PhD students & postdocs; up to $50,000 for faculty; project period up to 12 months.
Summary: Supports Stanford researchers using frontier AI to significantly advance and scale impact-focused social science research through innovative methods, tools, or institutional models.
Key Information: Only Stanford faculty, postdocs, and PhD students are eligible.
Description
This experimental funding opportunity from Stanford Impact Labs aims to accelerate the speed, quality, and relevance of social science research by supporting projects that leverage frontier AI tools in transformative ways. The grant is intentionally broad, seeking proposals that use AI to unlock or analyze new data, improve research methods, rethink research architectures, or enhance the institutions and processes supporting social science. The emphasis is on projects that treat current AI capabilities as a baseline, articulate how approaches can scale with advancing AI, and generate tools or models that can be adopted by others. Awardees are expected to complete projects within 12 months, share key outputs publicly, and present their work at a demo day.
