Call AI 4 COVID-19 R&D projects: Data Science and Artificial Intelligence in Public Administration

On March 31, the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) will open applications Call R&D projects "AI 4 COVID-19: Data Science and Artificial Intelligence in Public Administration."

This is the third edition of an Calls program focused on research in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence applied to Public Administration. This year, it is exclusively oriented toward data processing in the context of the current SARS CoV2 coronavirus pandemic and COVID-19 disease, and in the context of the growing uncertainty and social alarm in which we live.

The objective of Call 4 COVID-19 is to support scientific research and technological development (SR&TD) projects and initiatives that can contribute to responses to this and future pandemics through data science and artificial intelligence, developed in partnership between public administration and R&D institutions, with an emphasis on supporting citizens and healthcare services and providers.

Advances in computing and artificial intelligence techniques allow for increasingly complex analysis of different microdata sets, combining them to extract previously inaccessible knowledge. The scientific community is essential for developing a public administration model based on advanced analysis methods that allow the full potential of existing data to be exploited.

This Call the support line recently launched by FCT "Research 4 Covid-19" to support R&D activities geared towards immediate applications to combat Covid-19, now focusing specifically on stimulating the development of data processing methods and systems.

Projects may last between 24 and 36 months, with funding of up to €240,000 per project. The budget for this newly launched funding line will be €3 million.

All information about the application process for this new Call 4 COVID-19 Call is available on this page, and applications will be open from March 31 to May 28, 2020.

FCT recently produced a brochure presenting IC&DT projects under the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Calls program for 2018 and 2019, which can be viewed here. In these editions, 28 projects were approved for funding, on topics as diverse as health, public transport, water resource management, and the use of data from the European Space Agency's IPSentinel system. This program is part of the National Digital Skills Initiative e.2030 (Portugal INCoDe.2030) with a total budget of €10 million.