Microsoft’s AI Economy Institute — Cohort 4: Research Focus — AI and Jobs: Designing for Augmented Work

Sponsor’s Website

Visit Microsoft’s AI Economy Institute (AIEI) website for more information on Cohort 4: Research Focus — AI and Jobs: Designing for Augmented Work.

Internal Contacts

Carleton International: International.Research@cunet.carleton.ca

Potential applicants are also encouraged to discuss this funding opportunity with their Faculty Research Facilitator.

Deadlines

Overview

Launched in 2025, Microsoft’s AIEI funds independent, policy-relevant research examining how AI is transforming productivity, work, education and economic opportunity worldwide. The institute prioritizes research that can directly inform policymakers, employers, educators and workers as generative AI becomes more widely adopted.

Focus of the Call

AIEI invites proposals for its fourth global research call, centred on understanding the organizational choices that shape where AI complements human work, where it substitutes for human work and where it creates entirely new forms of economic activity. This call therefore asks researchers to investigate the organizational conditions under which AI augments people, supports meaningful and sustained engagement with work, enables new forms of work and creates durable value. Research can also examine the circumstances in which AI displaces labor, erodes capability or creates new oversight burdens, particularly when those findings help explain when augmentation succeeds, when automation dominates and what makes the difference.

Priority Research Themes

• The Everyone-a-Manager Shift: Delegation, Judgment and Accountability
• Designing for Augmentation and Innovation: Tasks, Skills, Roles and New Work
• Designing Organizations and Workflows People Embrace
• Building Expertise and the First Rung
• Designing for AI-Mediated Discovery, Markets and Value Creation

Award Commitments

• Participate in biweekly virtual convenings that may include interim deliverables such as data analyses, initial findings and working papers.
• Workshop with other awardees and Microsoft leadership in person at a Microsoft location, providing an abstract, problem and motivation, brief literature review, methodology, preliminary results, discussion, limitations and references to further scholarship of AIEI.
• Contribute a chapter for a book that will synthesize the findings and observations of the research cohort.
• Participate in a policy workshop.
• Conduct research and submit a manuscript to a high-quality, open-access journal within nine-months of notification of award.
• Researchers will be recognized as senior fellows of AIEI and, as appropriate, will be offered opportunities to present their findings at industry events and conferences.

Value

• Each selected proposal will receive a single research grant of USD $75,000.
• Each selected proposal is eligible for one travel allowance to support attendance at the in-person workshop:
  • USD $7,500 for awardees based in the United States, Canada or Mexico.
  • USD $20,000 for all other awardees.

Eligibility

• Open to researchers at accredited universities and research institutions worldwide.
• Proposals may include up to two principal investigators (PIs).
• PIs must hold a PhD or equivalent terminal degree (e.g., MD, JD, DrPH) and have held that degree for at least three years at the time of application.

Special Considerations

Priority will be given to proposals that:

• Are cross, multi and interdisciplinary.
• Consider multilayer impacts of the AI Economy.
• Compare and contrast country and/or regional perspectives.
• Propose a novel direction of scholarship in alignment with the AIEI mission.
• Use existing data sets or leverage existing platforms for collecting data.
• Consider longer-term effects of AI on education, including both challenges and opportunities.

General Guidelines

• All submissions should be submitted in English by the candidate (self-submission). Incomplete applications will not be considered.
• Please do not add additional requests for budget as these will not be considered under the guidelines of this fellowship.
• Proposals submitted to Microsoft will not be returned. Microsoft cannot assume responsibility for the confidentiality of information in submitted applications. Therefore, proposals should not contain information that is confidential, restricted or sensitive.

Application Components

Applications consist of two parts:

• Applicant Biosketch (11-point font)
  • Personal statement (≤ 300)
  • One-page professional summary
  • Up to three contributions to science
  • Current research support and citation metrics (H-index, total number of citations and I-index)
• Project Overview (≤1 page, 11-point font)
  • Research question, methods and contribution
  • Policy relevance and applicability
  • Up to three target journals

Submitting Your Application

1. Submit an internal Approval Form through our central awards management database cuResearch. Consult the user’s manual for guidance.
2. Submit an external application to AIEI through the online Microsoft Portal by November 30, 2026. Additional documents and details regarding the application process, including Letter of Intent guidelines and a list of required components, can be found on the portal.