Deadline: 25 October 2019

Nesta, Wellcome Trust, the Cloudera Foundation, and Omidyar Network are accepting applications for its Collective Intelligence Grants Program to offer grants of up to £30,000 for experiments that generate new knowledge on how to advance collective intelligence to solve social problems.

This call is relevant for organisations already combining human and machine intelligence, and who want to test a variety of approaches or a new approach to better understand what works in designing or applying collective intelligence for social good. It is also relevant for social sector organisations with strong technology skills and/or a technology partner who wants to compare different ways to harness collective intelligence to tackle an important social problem. It is also relevant for research institutions with strong applied research credentials and for companies/start-ups who would like to explore potential social benefits from existing collective intelligence ‘products’.

Areas

• Generate evidence for the added value of using collective intelligence versus other approaches to address social challenges
• Testing ways in which participation in collective intelligence initiatives might help reduce social or political polarisation
• Testing how the involvement in, or use of, collective intelligence might increase the ability of individuals, groups or organisations to deal with uncertainty or change feelings of agency
• Testing effective ways in which collective intelligence could reduce bias in understanding and decision-making
• Testing different strategies for accelerating collective memory and learning
• Improving the application of existing technologies to advance collaboration or coordination to address complex social issues
• Testing strategies to increase diversity of the crowd in collective intelligence projects
• Harnessing collective intelligence to address the needs of underserved or marginalised communities, for example in cities or rural areas
• Testing how factors such as the diversity of the “crowd” (socio-economic background, gender balance, ethnicity etc) affect the outcome of the collective intelligence approach
• Piloting ways of translating between humans and machines involved in collective intelligence approaches, e.g. improving the explainability of data/algorithms used
• Testing different ways in which charities and public sector organisations can tap into distributed collective intelligence
• Generating insight on the connection between artistic or innovative approaches, embodied intelligence and collective intelligence
• Evaluating the impact of methods that use collective intelligence in participatory futures – techniques that systematically engage people to imagine and create more sustainable, inclusive futures

Funding Information

In addition to funding of up to £30,000, they can also support the selected teams in other ways. It may:

• Organise conferences, webinars, or workshops to provide a forum to discuss experiments and findings with other grantees and a broader community of collective intelligence practitioners and academics
• Make Nesta’s collective intelligence research team available to provide research support to help ensure experiments are appropriately designed and carried out
• Provide matching support, helping to identify and connect individuals and organisations who can contribute to the experiments
• Promote the sharing of the findings through different media and social media channels and translate them for a range of audiences.

Desired Outcomes

The experiments should generate new insights on collective intelligence design (e.g., models, frameworks, features, approaches) based on evidence with general application for others to adapt, adopt, or test further. Insights and recommendations will be collated and published by Nesta to inform and advance the field of collective intelligence design.

Eligibility Criteria

• They welcome applications from registered organisations based anywhere in the UK or internationally. They aim to fund a diverse community of grantees and are particularly keen to support experiments from minority-serving institutions and from organisations that have demonstrated commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion. They will not fund individuals.
• To be considered, submitted ideas must:
  • Be a practical experiment that will increase the evidence base on what works in designing/applying collective intelligence to tackle social problems
  • Demonstrate it will generate actionable insight for collective intelligence practitioners
  • Make use of digital technologies/methods
  • Demonstrate it is tackling a social problem and has public benefit.
  • Be made by legally incorporated organisations registered with the appropriate authority or regulator in the country of residence.
• They are not able to support ideas that:
  • Are likely to increase inequality or exclusion, or otherwise have a harmful or detrimental effect on individuals.
  • Are not likely to be of public benefit. They cannot support ideas that are solely or predominantly for the personal or private financial benefit of an individual or organisation.
  • Are from an individual. Applicants must be a registered organisation to be eligible for this funding.

Evaluation Criteria

• Fit with the aim of the call: proposes a practical experiment that increases the evidence base on what works in designing/applying collective intelligence to address social problems
• Likelihood of creating actionable new insights for practitioners seeking to apply collective intelligence to tackle social problems
• Novelty and innovativeness of the idea
• Potential impact – They are more interested in proposals that generate lessons that have wider applicability and can be used across different contexts than findings which are of limited use outside a narrow niche
• Methodological appropriateness and feasibility of the approach
• Track record, commitment and openness to learning of the team and organisation(s) involved in the proposal

How to Apply

Applications must be submitted online via given website.