AI4Life Open Call

First Open Call

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Terms and conditions

By applying to this call, you agree that your personal data can be processed according to the privacy policy in the application form.

How to apply?

We’ve tried to make the application process as simple as possible for you. However, we still need some information to make sure that we can assist you with your project. For that, we’ve divided the application form into 5 different blocks:

Personal information: given name, surname, institution, and e-mail address.
Project details: title, scientific domain(s), and the type of solution you’re looking for, visual abstract if you have it.
Your existing data: here we would like to know how your images look like by (optionally) providing a sample, describing the content, type of images, size, file format, availability of metadata and ground truth data.
Your existing analysis: Have you tried to analyze your data already? If so, we’d like to know which tools you (and your community) use and how much automation you used.
Impact & Dissemination: we would like to assess how relevant your analysis is for your community and if you’re willing to help us promote the outcomes of the project.

And that’s it! If you have any questions during the process, please feel free to reach out to us at ai4life@eurobioimaging.eu.

How will the review process work?

We also want to make the review process as short as possible so that we can start working together soon 🤩

There are two main parts to the review process:

Eligibility check: Partners of the AI4Life project will check that the application is complete and falls within the broader scope of the Open Call.
Expert review: We’ve gathered a pool of experts in the field in an Open Call Selection Committee (OCSC) and a board of reviewers. These volunteers will assess different aspects of your application. Each project will be reviewed by at least 2 application experts. For this, we will anonymize all applications. The focus will be on:

Technical feasibility

Can deep learning methods help with the proposed project?
Is it doable with 6 months of part-time expert support?

Community impact

Is it relevant for either the scientific or computational communities?
Once worked out, can the analysis be reused by others?

Who are the reviewers?

We have gathered a pool of reviewers from AI4Life partners and external volunteer experts. To become reviewers, experts need to sign both a conflict of interest statement and a non-disclosure agreement.

Note: If you are interested in becoming a reviewer for this or a future Open Call, please apply here!

How to change your application?

If you’d like to make changes to the application once submitted, please contact ai4life@eurobioimaging.eu with the requested changes. We can’t ensure that the changes will be made after the submission deadline.

Who can apply?

Everyone! Please apply! 🙂

Can people from outside Europe apply?

Absolutely! Everyone with projects meeting our requirements is welcome to apply.

What's the deadline?

The deadline for this call is the 31st of March 2023 at Noon UTC.

Why are you doing this?

One of the goals of AI4Life is to bring life science and computer science closer together. Our aim is to demonstrate that there is untapped potential that can be unleashed by simply creating a tighter-knit community that is on one hand tech savvy enough to implement methods and tools based on the latest trends in AI, and on the other hand solves data analysis problems that exist in the life sciences.

What level of AI/deep learning knowledge do I need to submit/collaborate?

You know nothing? Your level of expertise is perfect!
You are an expert yourself? Your level of expertise is perfect as well! 🙂

What level of involvement/collaboration do you expect from the submitter during the course of the project?

It depends on the project, but we expect that you can at least spend the same amount of time on helping to find a suitable solution as we will spend to help you with that.

What kind of data can I submit? What about medical/sensitive data?

You can only submit data that you are legally allowed to share publicly. If in doubt, please ask some data steward or other knowledgeable person in your organization prior to sharing any data with us (or anyone else for that matter).

What parts of my data need to be openly available in order to apply?

In order for us to work on your analysis problem, all data you share with us needs to be publicly available under a permissive license (e.g. CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, or CC0). Details about what your data shows (and how you acquired it) can be shared with us more privately, minimizing your risk of being scooped on your unpublished work.

If it is not currently possible for you to share sufficient parts of your data with us under a permissive license, we will be happy to see you apply to one of our future Open Calls.

Do I receive funding from this Open Call?

No. We provide successful applicants with free-of-charge expert support and, if applicable, access to computational resources. We believe that this expertise can be worth more than money would be. 😉

Does applying to the Open Calls cost anything?

Participation in the Open Calls is free of charge. What a great moment to thank the European Commission for funding AI4Life under grant agreement number 101057970.

I have a cool AI model/tool - How can I get involved?

What if my project isn't selected?

If your project was not selected we can offer you to put the analysis problem you applied with on our AI4Life matchmaking portal. This might mean that other interested parties might contact you about ideas they have to address your needs. If this does not sound interesting, we would not share any information about your proposal publicly.