Facebook Research Global Literacy & Accessibility Challenge 2018 (Up to $30,000 USD)

Deadline: July 25, 2018

Facebook is pleased to invite the academic community to respond to their call for research proposals to better understand and address global literacy and accessibility issues. At Facebook, they strive to build communities across the globe and bring the world closer together. To do so, they need to reduce the barrier for everyone to participate, regardless of their backgrounds and abilities.

Grant awardees will be expected to contribute to the field of literacy and accessibility through qualitative or quantitative research, including, but not limited to:

• Novel, scalable methods on assessing individual or population literacy levels.
• Understanding the experiences and challenges associated with literacy issues, eg learning disabilities or barriers due to English as a second language.
• Understanding the social, structural, and technology issues that prevent people from improving literacy skills.
• Understanding the impact of literacy skills on individuals and society.
• Digital, social technologies used to improve literacy level, especially, closing the gender gap in literacy rate.
• Design and development of technologies to elevate the literacy barrier, preferably with a focus on social and AI technologies.

Benefits

• Awards will be made up to $30K USD per proposal for projects up to one year in duration beginning August 2018;
• Representatives from each awarded project will be invited to a workshop with other participants in November 2018 to share preliminary results, and are expected to attend an evaluation meeting in late January 2019. Opportunities for a second round of funding will be determined at the January meeting. Travel costs to Menlo Park CA, USA should be included in the proposed budget;
• Award recipients will be listed on the Facebook Research website and will be encouraged to openly publish any findings from their work as well as make any code available as open source.

Eligibility

• Open to members of the academic community across the globe

Application

Applicants should submit a two-page proposal outlining their intended research and a budget overview of how the funding will be used. Additionally, participants need to submit a research timeline with quarterly milestones.

Proposals should include:

• A summary of the project (1-2 pages) explaining the area of focus, a description of techniques, any relevant prior work, and a timeline with milestones and expected outcomes.
• A draft budget description (1 page) including an approximate cost of the award and explanation of how funds would be spent

Curriculum Vitae for all project participants.