The Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities has not published the final resolution of aid for research projects on artificial intelligence (AI) for a year. What was initially received with enthusiasm by the scientific community for the possibility of creating multidisciplinary networks, was cut short in just a few months. The project would distribute, through European Next Generation funds, up to 31 million euros in various research proposals that, as a requirement, had to have the participation of professionals from different study centers.
The plans, which would have to be developed throughout 2024 and 2025, were evaluated in May of this year. According to those affected, it would be possible to extend their execution, although the silence they have received after their demands before the Ministry of Science worries them. The portfolio headed by Diana Morant has assured that it “studies different scenarios that allow the use of these funds in the event of not being able to carry out the aforementioned call in its current format.”
This is a call without equal in Spain in which up to two million euros would be allocated per project. The direct consequence, beyond the impossibility of developing these very ambitious proposals, is that hundreds of researchers could be hired with that budget that has not yet been executed.
Called “Financing of cooperative research plans in the area of artificial intelligence developed by interdisciplinary research groups 2023”, the call began in July of that year. Its financing comes from component 16 of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, of the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy, the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence.
A year without being able to investigate
By September 2023, the researchers had to have their proposals ready. According to those affected, nearly a hundred of them were admitted. “It wasn’t easy because we had to do it in the middle of August, but the opportunity was worth it. I presented a project of more than 80 pages justifying in detail what we would invest the money in,” says Alfonso Tarancón, professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Zaragoza (Unizar).
He is the principal investigator of a project signed by 16 senior researchers in which there are professionals from Unizar itself, the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), the Institute of Physics of Cantabria, the University of Granada and the foundation and center of Ibercivis studies. Among them are engineers, physicists, sociologists, statesmen, educators and psychologists. Now, everyone is looking forward to being able to start investigating, as long as their proposal, budgeted at 1,900,060 euros, is accepted.
If so, they would begin to experiment to “find out how society responds to stimuli introduced by chatbots programmed with AI,” he explains. In this way, his study group could conclude how humans react to fake news shared by these chats, for example, but also before trolls who seek to muddy the conversation or, on the contrary, chatbots that propose positive solutions. “How resilient is society to these stimuli introduced by AI? Could AI learn which ideas are most viral even if they are not based on truth? How would we respond to these intrusions? That is what we would like to find out,” says Tarancón.
From his point of view, what happened with the call is “a hot potato” that the Ministry does not want to cool: “It would be as simple as publishing the selected ones and extending the duration of the project one more year for this already lost 2024,” he believes.
High impact projects, stopped
Uncertainty spreads among those affected. Nobody knows if their project has been chosen, when the money will arrive and in what way and for how long they will be able to develop it. Tarancón himself predicts that they will choose one or two projects for each line proposed in the call, with a total of ten. Among them are topics such as AI and cognition, environmental impact, advanced algorithms, physical system, human-machine interactions and language technologies.
German Rigau, deputy director of the Basque Research Center for Language Technologies of the University of the Basque Country (UPV), proposed a project on this last line of research. “We are facing a unique opportunity to develop high-impact projects related to AI,” this researcher introduces. In its case, during August 2023 it coordinated with eight more academic centers throughout Spain to present its proposal. “We could do many things with those two million euros, but at the moment everything is stopped,” he complains.
The idea he presented is related to language models, so his project is intricate with the digital humanities: “We wanted to know to what extent realities like the GTP Chat can be applied to more complex tasks, like those normally developed humanists in any field, such as journalism,” illustrates the expert. To make it a reality, it has counted on experts from nine research centers throughout Spain, such as the UCM, the CSIC, the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the UNED, among whom are linguists, librarians, computer scientists and historians.
Extend the call as an exit
Rigau also proposes that the call be extended: “This money is already in Spain. They just have to hand it out so we can investigate. If not, they will surely have to return it to Europe.” Tarancón, for his part, considers that the Ministry is at a crossroads. “They have been choked and now, even if they back down and withdraw the call, they will have a problem explaining to the European Union what has happened to that unexecuted money,” emphasizes the Unizar researcher.
The two AI specialists agree that the projects have been evaluated since May 2024. “If they cancel the call, they will be ending the aspirations of hundreds of researchers who have worked on proposals for projects that will hardly be able to receive funding of that kind again.” deep,” adds Rigau.
The Ministry of Science has confirmed that “the call suffers a delay in internal management to definitively resolve it”, motivated by the transfer of the Universities portfolio to the Ministry of Science and Innovation in November 2023, as well as “a consequence of the changes carried out carried out in the General Secretariat of Universities at the end of May of this 2024.” “Currently, the Ministry is studying different scenarios that allow the use of these funds in the event of not being able to carry out the aforementioned call in its current format,” they added.
For her part, the general director of Planning, Coordination and Knowledge Transfer answered at the parliamentary headquarters on December 12, in the Science, Innovation and Universities Commission, that the call “is in the process of being resolved” and a decision should be made. “solution in a very short space of time”, he even went so far as to affirm that the resolution would be “next week”.
Hundreds of researchers to hire
Rigau, on the other hand, emphasizes that most of the amount of the proposed items was aimed at hiring researchers. Given this extreme, the UPV member estimates that there are 20 scientists who could be part of his team. “If they granted us the 2 million euros, at around 60,000 euros that a postdoc earns, we could count on expert and well-paid people to develop the project,” he clarifies.
Among those affected are also hundreds of postdoctoral researchers, not only professors and directors of centers, although they are somewhat afraid to express their opinion on the matter as they do not have their positions stabilized. A postdoctoral researcher at an Andalusian university who prefers to remain anonymous reiterates that “many jobs are being lost with people who are experts in their fields solely due to the incompetence of the Ministry.”
From his point of view, “the creation of these multidisciplinary networks within the field of AI was a great boost for many of us researchers who are trying to carve out a future in Spanish science, which is already complicated in itself,” he points out. “We postdocs could sign the projects as principal investigators, which would mean leading a plan that would help us stabilize our position,” argues this principal investigator of his project, for which professionals from five universities at the state level had been coordinated.
Tarancón, from Unizar, also complains that the Ministry has not listened to their demands. “We have to complete everything perfectly and within a deadline, but they can go a year without resolving a call. What kind of reciprocity is that?” he asks.
Rigau, from the UPV, affirms that if the Ministry decides to cancel the call there would be reasons to go to administrative litigation. “It would be a totally arbitrary decision that would leave hundreds of scientists from all over Spain who have coordinated to carry out these investigations in the lurch,” he emphasizes before exclaiming that “we are very frustrated, because it would really be a shame if this money will not be executed.”
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