THE DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS HAS PASSED

Next generation ai

- call for proposals

How can different areas of computer science use AI to create novel solutions? DIREC is now welcoming proposals for projects under the theme “Next Generation AI”.

 

supporting World-class danish research

The “Next Generation AI” call aims to advance world-class Danish research in digital technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, and to translate this research into value-generating applications of digital technologies for both the business sector and public administration.

DIREC is particularly interested in projects that demonstrate how the combination of computer science and AI can create novel insights that can lead to new products or research directions.

The call favors projects that aim to create prototypes demonstrating the innovative and cutting-edge expertise of the Danish computer science community.

This initiative is part of the research fund allocation granted to DIREC  in November 2024 by Ministry of Higher Education and Science. 

call for proposals: Bridge projects

The core goal of a Bridge project is to demonstrate how AI can support research and innovation within computer science. A secondary goal is to develop strong collaboration bonds between at least two universities/GTS and at least one external partner.

Bridge projects are characterized by: 

  • All projects need to be a collaboration between at least two universities or the Alexandra Institute. Both partners must allocate resources for the project and, preferably, make a balanced effort.
  • The project also needs at least one external partner from a company or a public organization. Since collaboration is key, finding a partner who is strongly motivated by the project is essential. The plan for collaboration between all partners will be key evaluation criteria.
  • The projects need to address the theme “Next generation AI” and present a novel idea about using AI in a computer science field that also interests at least one external partner.
  • The project can run for up to two years, and the budget is designed to allow for hire of up to two postdocs at two different partners. 
  • Budget: Up to 4 million DKK including overhead.

Total budget for Bridge Projects: 20 million kr. equivalent to 5 projects 

The project needs to adhere to the DIREC guidelines for managing research projects with external partners.

FAQ - Bridge projects

  • Only university institutes that are a core DIREC partner, including the Alexandra Institute, can receive funding in this call.
  • External partners can participate but cannot apply for funding.
  • The external partner can contribute with co-funding is not required, but their support and involvement will be an evaluation criterion.
  • The external partner can be a company or a public organization.
  • More than one external partners can be added to the project
  • A third university can be added but does not count as an external partner.
  • The partner can be Danish, but international partners are also welcome.
  • No co-funding is required, but their support and involvement will be an evaluation criterion such as:
    – Having a strong shared plan
    – Having agreed on a shared desk for key researchers
    – Having agreed on access to external partner data
    – Show commitment to the project
    – Argues for the relevance of the company
    – Other types of commitments
  • The external partner must sign a letter of intent and appoint a project manager.
  • Each project must appoint an overall project manager (project owner) responsible for communicating with DIREC.
  • The project needs to participate in a status meeting every 6 months with DIREC (preferable in connection with a project meeting)
  • The project needs to write a short monthly newsletter (report) to all project participants including DIREC. The report can be short, and its main purpose is to communicate the project pulse.
  • A Bridge project proposal can have a budget of up to 4 million DKK including overhead, and it needs to cover at least one researcher from each partner. The budget is mainly intended for covering the salaries of new employees, such as postdocs or research assistants, and not for tenured staff. Any involvement from tenured staff in the project will require co-funding from the universities.
  • For the proposal, 44% can be added as overhead (automatically calculated).
  • The universities need to contribute with at least 10% in co-founding.
  • The project duration can be up to two years, and it must start no later than December 31, 2025.
  • April 10, 2025: Call opens – applications welcome
  • May 30, 2025: Application deadline
  • July 1, 2025: Project feedback and confirmation of grants 
  • August 2025: Earliest start date for projects
  • December 31, 2025: Latest start date for projects

Application - Bridge projects

Applications must be submitted via application@direc.dk no later than May 30, 2025.

Download the following templates for the application:  

We expect a final proposal to have a length of 4-7 pages excluding references.

Call for proposals: Agile Bridge projects

One of the potential barriers to collaboration between industry and research is the different time scales of companies versus universities. Sometimes, it can take years, from an initial project idea to a collaborative research project. In Agile Bridge projects, we explore how research and industry can collaborate agilely on upcoming topics, pushing research speed through innovative projects.

The focus of fast strategic bridge projects is to minimize the decision times for collaborative research projects. 

Agile Bridge Projects are characterized by:  

  • The project must have strong strategic interest from a company willing to fund half of the research expenses.
  • There must be a named candidate with the ability to start working on the project within 3 months.
  • There must be a commitment from the legal departments of all partners that the project can start within 3 months.
  • An external partner needs to match the funding from DIREC in cash.
  • Budget: The proposal can have a budget of up to 1 million DKK including overhead.

Total budget for Agile Bridge projects: 5 million kr. equivalent to 5 projects.

The project needs to adhere to the DIREC guidelines for managing research projects with external partners. 

FAQ - Agile Bridge projects

  • Everybody can be a partner in a DIREC project.
  • Only core members of DIREC can receive funding in this call.
  • Companies, public organizations and foreign universities cannot receive funding.
  • The external partner can be either a company or a public organization.
  • The external partner must match DIREC funding
  • More than one external partner can be added to the project
  • A third university can be added, but it does not count as an external partner.
  • The partner can be Danish, but international partners are also welcome.
  • A strong plan for collaboration is part of the evaluation criteria, which may include:
    • A well-defined shared plan for the project
    • Agreement on a shared desk for key researchers
    • Having agreed on access to external partner data
    • Clear demonstration of commitment to the project
    • A strong argument for the relevance of the company to the project
    • Other types of commitments
  • The external partner must sign a letter of intent and appoint a project manager.
  • Each project must appoint an overall project manager (project owner) who is responsible for communicating with DIREC.
  • The project needs to participate in a status meeting every 6 months with DIREC (preferable in connection with a project meeting)
  • The project needs to write a short monthly newsletter (report) to all project participants including DIREC. The report can be short, and its main purpose is to communicate the project pulse.
  • A proposal can apply for up to 1 million DKK in funding from DIREC. The budget is mainly intended for covering the salaries of new employees, such as postdocs or research assistants, and is not meant for tenured staff. The involvement of tenured staff will require co-funding from the universities.
  • For the proposal, 44 % can be added as overhead (automatically calculated).
  • The universities must contribute with at least 10% in co-founding.
  • Projects will be approved within 14 business days (excluding typical holidays)
  • The project duration can be up to 2 years, and it must start no later than December 31, 2025.
  • The first submission will be received on May 30, and the call will remain open until the allocated budgeted resources have been fully distributed.

Application - Agile Bridge projects

Applications must be submitted via application@direc.dk

The call will remain open until the budgeted resources have been distributed.

Download the following templates for the application:  

Evaluation Panel

The evaluation panel will play a central role in assessing and recommending the research and innovation projects that receive support. Additionally, the panel will function as a strategic advisory board and will be involved continuously to ensure the relevance, market proximity, and strategic direction of the Next Generation AI project.

Lynda Hardman

Principal Researcher & Strategist, CWI

Lynda Hardman is a Principal Researcher & Strategist and a member of the Human-Centered Data Analytics research group at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), and she holds the chair in Multimedia Discourse Interaction at Utrecht University. She is active in national and international advisory and governance roles, currently chairing the European COST Scientific Committee and the SURF Scientific Technical Council (2025–2027). She serves on the Scientific Directorate of Schloss Dagstuhl and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Mannheim Center for Data Science. Hardman also promotes equality, diversity and inclusion in the Dutch ICT academic community and is in the steering committee of the Digital Humanism Initiative. She is a Fellow of the British Computer Society and an ACM Distinguished Scientist.

Rachid Guerraoui

Professor, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Rachid Guerraoui is a Moroccan-Swiss-French computer scientist and Full Professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), where he leads the Distributed Computing Laboratory. He is an ACM Fellow and an associate (area) editor of the Journal of the ACM. Renowned for his contributions to concurrent and distributed computing, Guerraoui has held positions at HP Labs, MIT, and the Collège de France. Guerraoui's honors include an ERC Advanced Grant Award, the Google Focused Award,  the Dahl–Nygaard Senior Prize and the ACM Luiz Barroso Award. 

Thomas Jensen

Director of Research, INRIA & Adjoint Professor, University of Copenhagen

Thomas Jensen is directeur de recherche at INRIA and adjoint professor at University of Copenhagen. At INRIA he leads the Epicure team on software analysis and security. He holds a PhD from Imperial College London and a Habilitation from University of B29Rennes. Thomas Jensen's research is concerned with programming languages, semantics-based program analysis and software security. His research results include abstract interpretation in logical form, the first formally verified data flow analyzer, security analyzers for Java and Java Card, and hybrid information flow analysis techniques for estimating attacker knowledge in Web applications. Since 2022, Thomas Jensen is director of the French Excellence Centre CominLabs on Information and Communication Technology.

Sarah Jane Delany

Professor, School of Computer Science, TU Dublin

Sarah Jane Delany is the Professor of Inclusive Computer Science in the School of Computer Science at TU Dublin. She has a BA (Mod) in Mathematics from Trinity College Dublin and received her PhD from Dublin Institute of Technology in 2006. With a background in mathematics and industry experience at Accenture and ESBI Computing, her research focuses on applying machine learning to real-world problems—particularly in supervised learning, text analytics, bias, and concept drift. She is Director of the ARC Hub for ICT, a national research centre that focuses on accelerating ICT and IA research to commercialisation and co-Director of ML-Labs, the SFI Centre for Research Training in Machine Learning. Her recent work includes projects on bias in training data and gender issues in text, supported by the HEA Gender Equality Enhancement Fund.

Joe Gibbs

General Manager, Lero

Joe Gibbs is General Manager of Lero, the Research Ireland Centre for Software Research. He is responsible for all of the operational aspects of Lero’s research programme. Prior to joining Lero in 2015 he spent over 30 years in the technical management and commercialisation of innovative ideas in Software, Automotive, Oil, Gas and Aerospace industry sectors having led large multi-disciplined R&D teams across Europe and the US for various multinational companies including Snap-on Diagnostics and Borg-Warner. He is a graduate of the University of Limerick in Computer Engineering and holds an MSc in Technology & Innovation Management from University College Dublin. In 2014 he was honoured with a Fellowship of Engineers Ireland, a prestigious recognition for his contributions to the engineering profession.

Mads Rydahl

Entrepreneur and tech product lead

Mads Rydahl was Director of Product and Design at Siri. He is a veteran entrepreneur who has built computer games for Lego, interfaces for Bang & Olufsen, and search experiences for Stanford University. He pioneered AI tools for research as cofounder of UNSILO.ai, and is presently building trustworthy AI as a cofounder of Proem.ai.

Karl-Erik Årzén

Professor, Lund University

Karl-Erik Årzén received the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Lund University, Lund, Sweden in 1981 and the Ph.D. degree in automatic control also from Lund University in 1987. He has been a full Professor with the Department of Automatic Control, Lund University, since 2000. In the beginning of the 1990s he worked for ABB Corporate Research. His current research interests are embedded real-time control systems, and control applied to computing systems, in particular embedded systems and cloud infrastructures. He is also interested in embedded control, real-time systems, cyber-physical systems, and programming languages for control applications. Årzén is a fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) and head of the department of automatic control at Lund University. Since 2018 he is co-director for the WASP AI, Autonomous Systems and Software program.

Georgios Leontidis

Professor and Deputy Director, SUSTAIN, University of Aberdeen

Georgios is the Deputy Director of the £11M AI Centre for Doctoral Training “SUSTAIN” and leads the CDT's machine learning stream. He is a professor of machine learning and the Interdisciplinary Institute Director (Big Data and AI) at the University of Aberdeen, providing strategic leadership across the university. Georgios currently leads or co-leads several initiatives, including the BBSRC AI in the Biosciences Network, the EPSRC Enhancing Agrifood Transparent Sustainability Project, and the European Space Agency’s Svalbard Cryosphere Digital Twin project. His research focuses on enhancing representation learning in deep neural networks by developing novel self-supervised learning methods and architectural concepts, as well as exploring how these techniques can be applied in fields such as the environment, agri-food, and energy transition. Prof Leontidis is an Action Editor and Area Chair for the flagship Machine Learning venues ICLR, NeurIPS and TMLR, and a member of the Scotland Beyond Net Zero steering group. Georgios co-organised the 2023 British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC) and is the chair of the 2025 British Machine Vision Association Summer School.

Robert Jenssen

Professor, The Arctic University of Norway

Robert Jenssen is Director of Visual Intelligence, a Centre for Research-based Innovation at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, and Professor in the UiT Machine Learning Group. His research focuses on deep learning for image analysis and multimodal learning. He also holds adjunct positions at the Pioneer Centre for AI, University of Copenhagen, and the Norwegian Computing Center. Robert Jenssen has received numerous accolades, including the Best Paper Award from Pattern Recognition Letters (2024), the IEEE GRS Society Letters Prize Paper Award (2013), and Winner of the IEEE GRS Society Letters Prize Paper Award (2013). He was also named Outstanding Lecturer by UiT’s Faculty of Science and Technology in 2018. Internationally, he serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, the French AI Excellence Cluster SequoIA, and DIREC – Digital Research Centre Denmark.

FAQ - general

  • Everybody can be a partner in a DIREC-project,
  • However, only core members of DIREC can receive funding in this call. Currently, that includes:
    • DTU: DTU Compute
    • ITU: All departments
    • CBS: Department of Digitalization
    • RUC: Department of People and Technology 
    • AU: Department of Computer Science
    • AAU: Department of Computer Science
    • SDU: The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute & Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
    • KU: Department of Computer Science
    • The Alexandra Institute
    • Please get in touch with the head of the department for additional information.
  • Company, public organization and foreign universities cannot receive funding.
  • Excellence – Quality in research, teaching, and innovation
    • Ambitious and clear objectives.
    • The probability of a breakthrough with high gain reflects the risk.
    • A clear description of the methods used.
    • State-of-the-art and excellence of the question(s) investigated as well as the excellence of the solution and its method(s).
    • Competences of the team.
  • Value Creation
    • Value creation for and impact on the international research community.
    • Value creation for Danish society, for the beneficiaries and for the partners – including innovation and commercial potential if relevant.
    • Qualification of excellent researchers needed by universities to serve the societal demands, including maturation of early-stage researchers.
    • Demonstrate DIREC’s objective of bringing partners (researchers, companies, or public organisations) together in the Danish ecosystem.
  • Implementation
    • A clear, shared vision by the partners and actions undertaken to ensure the partners’ ownership.
    • A multi-organizational dream team with necessary competencies, qualifications, resources, and time allocation. Diversity and experience create synergy among the participants.
    • Economic efficiency by resource optimization. Efficient decision-making processes.
    • Interdependencies between tasks and results.
    • Relevant legal, ethical, and regulatory aspects.
  • Collaboration
    • Evaluate based on how closely the project is collaborating with business.
    • Does the project describe how to ensure continuous collaboration? Is there a plan for regular meetings and workshops? Does the researcher plan to spend time with external partners?
    • What kind of deliverables will the external partner deliver? Prototypes, reports, organizing sessions or workshops, or similar deliverables?
    • What is the plan for using external partner resources in the project? Is there a plan for how to use company data to guide research? Does the company provide access to test facilities? Does the external partner provide access to key users for input and testing of research prototypes?

Next generation AI

Examples of research questions

Here are some examples of research questions we are curious about in the intersection of computer science and AI:

AI in the physical world

Based on the Danish Stronghold in robotics, how can we combine robot and drone technology with AI to train models based on data about the physical world?

Workstreams: Cyberphysical systems + AI

More efficient, low-cost and energy-efficient AI

Currently, AI algorithms use a lot of energy and are inefficient. Based on Denmark’s stronghold in algorithms, can we develop new techniques for training and inference that provide similar accuracy using less power?

Workstreams: Algorithms + AI

Collaborating
with AI

Denmark and Europe strongly focus on human values. How can we use this stronghold to create novel user interfaces with AI systems that do not replace humans but augment human capabilities?

Workstreams: HCI + AI

Data foundation for AI

With vast amounts of data available in Denmark, such as in our healthcare system, can we develop new strategies to make this data accessible for AI use without compromising privacy? How can we most efficiently organize, prepare, and store our data for an AI-driven future?

Workstreams: Big data + AI

AI in science

AI is widely used to accelerate the discovery of new knowledge, particularly in drug discovery and ingredient design. Denmark has traditionally been a leader in pharma, but how can we ensure the next generation of tools like "AlphaFold" is developed in Denmark?

Workstreams: Big data management and analysis + AI

Future software development

AI has the potential to change how software is developed. Denmark has a history of pioneering new programming languages and development paradigms. How will AI reshape software development, and what tools will be needed to support this evolution?

Workstreams: Software development + AI

Business opportunities with AI

While AI generates a fair amount of hype, AI's real potential is in raising society's productivity. How can businesses most efficiently connect these new AI possibilities with businesses focusing on producing a valuable product?

Workstreams: Business innovation + AI

Other research questions welcome

In addition to the examples suggested, we encourage exploration of other research questions related to AI's impact across various fields.

Questions

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.

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