The Data Science and AI Accelerator pairs eScience Institute data scientists with researchers from any field of study to work on focused, collaborative projects. Collaborations may center on analysis of an existing dataset to answer a specific research question, an implementation of software for processing or analyzing data, data visualization tools, or tools for data interpretation. This program is centered around building capacity — helping researchers to learn the skills and tools they need to do their projects rather than providing people to write code for them. Projects for Summer 2026 must be received by April 26 at 11:59 PM PT.

If you are seeking professional software engineering support beyond the scope of the accelerator program, please consider UW SSEC as a partner on funded research projects in any field.

Unlike our previous Incubator program, the Accelerator program runs year-round, and proposals are accepted on a rolling basis for collaborations of variable duration (from 1 week to 6 months) and intensity (from sprints to slow burns).

Accelerator Projects may be submitted at any time. Projects for Summer 2026 must be received by April 26th at 11:59 p.m. PT.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invites applications for the following Grand Challenges grant opportunities. Applications for all RFPs are due no later than April 28, 2026, at 11:30 AM Pacific Daylight Time.

• Innovations in Cost-Disruptive Tools for Diagnosis and Screening
• Novel Interventions Targeting Placental and Gut Inflammation to Improve Fetal Growth
• Addressing Physiological Barriers to Micronutrient Absorption from Fortified Foods
• Cost-Disrupting Innovations to Reduce the Cost of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food
• Breakthrough Innovations to Significantly Reduce the Cost of Severe Acute Malnutrition Treatment
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Accelerate Charitable Giving

The Foundation will host a dedicated webinar on each RFP to provide more details and answer your questions. Please check the challenge page of the RFP you are interested in for exact dates and times. The webinars will be recorded and available for viewing after the session.

• Innovations in Cost-Disruptive Tools for Diagnosis and Screening: This request for proposals (RFP) seeks cost-disruptive devices and diagnostics that cost less than US$1 per test or person, that can stand up to the real-world constraints of frontline public health, and that provide rapid, reliable results.
• Novel Interventions Targeting Placental and Gut Inflammation to Improve Fetal Growth: There are currently no scalable, effective therapies that directly prevent or reverse fetal growth restriction, which affects more than 20 million infants annually. This RFP is designed to accelerate the discovery and development of interventions targeting maternal gut–placenta inflammatory axes and oxidative stress to improve fetal growth outcomes.
• Addressing Physiological Barriers to Micronutrient Absorption from Fortified Foods: This RFP seeks innovative approaches to overcome the biological constraints that limit people’s ability to absorb micronutrients in fortified foods in high-burden settings, such as chronic inflammation and gut barrier dysfunction.
• Cost-Disrupting Innovations to Reduce the Cost of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food: With increasingly constrained resources to address Severe Acute Malnutrition, this RFP seeks innovative approaches that will reduce the cost of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTF) in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia by at least 30%.
• Breakthrough Innovations to Significantly Reduce the Cost of Severe Acute Malnutrition Treatment: This RFP seeks transformative, system-level innovations that can substantially increase the number of children treated per dollar spent by reducing the total cost per child treated—without changing the ex-factory price of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTF) or substituting RUTF with an alternative product.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Accelerate Charitable Giving: This RFP seeks ideas that use AI to connect potential donors (from everyday givers to established foundations) to the causes they care about and make it easier for them to contribute.

Please join the East Asia Center for a special public panel, “From Malthus to Musk: Searching for Population Equilibrium in East Asia“, that will feature CSDE Director Sara Curran and three other scholars on April 30 from 3:30 – 5 PM, in HUB 337, University of Washington.

From Malthus’s warnings of overpopulation to Musk’s urge to boost fertility, the drastic turn of humanity’s relationship with population growth is one of the defining features of East Asian societies. Nowhere have demographic shifts been more seismic in their speed, scale, and scope than in East Asia over the past century. Populations in this region now simultaneously exhibit the world’s longest life expectancies and its lowest fertility rates.

How did East Asian societies arrive at this point? Can they return to replacement-level fertility? Echoing the historical contrast between East Asian and Western European demographic regimes, we debate the existence of a distinct “East Asian model” of demographic transition. Adopting a regional and comparative perspective, we argue that intense family competition and proactive government intervention—both operating within the context of deep-seated cultural traditions—have defined the region’s current demographic challenges.

We conclude, however, that policy interventions alone will likely prove insufficient without addressing the fundamental shifts in social values and the complex interplay of economic, cultural, and political factors driving this historic demographic transformation.

Yong Cai
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Feng Wang
Professor, Sociology, School of Social Sciences
University of California, Irvine

Sara Curran
Professor, International Studies & Sociology
Director, Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology
University of Washington

James Lin
Associate Professor, International Studies & History
Chair, Taiwan Studies Program
University of Washington