IDAI Student Internships Programme 2026/27

IDAI student internships (“short fellowships”) programme 2026/27

The Institute for Data and AI (IDAI) is extending its student internships programme with a rolling call that opens in September 2026 and ends in May 2027.

IDAI affiliates are invited to apply for internship funds that can be used to hire casual students, typically between 8 and 13 weeks of work spells1, with a chance to extend their contracts subject to review of outcomes and funds availability.

IDAI has been funding student internships since 2025, view examples of past projects.

This call extends the scheme to around £100,000 / year. The average cost of an 8-week internship is around £4,000 (G6) (£3,520).

Key summary

As an affiliate, we invite you to make a simple application to fund one of your students, and this can be either PhD or MSc student (this can be a former student, typically at the end of their final project). We require that you name the student and that your application meets the assessment criteria listed below. If approved, the funds can be used to give the student a casual contract.

Rationale

The intent of this small funding scheme is to provide a rapid-response, efficient, lean, cost-effective mechanism to support emerging opportunities when they arise. This programme will leverage the talent of our best PGR/PGT students, and it enables IDAI affiliates to implement short “sprints” and experiment with new collaborations, which are focused on clear and immediate objectives, and which align with IDAI’s mission and vision and with the University’s broad AI strategy.

Ideally, the internships will be co-sponsored by external non-academic partners (businesses, public, third sector), leveraging their sponsorships and serving as testbeds for further collaborations.

Expected benefits

We expect that this mechanism will benefit:

• IDAI affiliates, to progress specific tasks as outlined above and to retain some of the best talent in their group.

• Excellent students, who can gain additional experience, including through business / non-academic partnerships (and get paid for their efforts) and cement their relationship with our academic community.

• Businesses, who can use the mechanism to de-risk their sponsorships and time investment on academic projects.

• The whole University, for instance when projects generate AI-related training material that can be broadly useful to other researchers and students.

Assessment criteria for internship proposals

1. Essential criteria

   1. Proposals are open to all IDAI affiliates.
      (Within the limits of their lawful employment. This is normally up to 35 hours per week (Grade 5 and below), or 37.5 hours per week (Grade 6 and above) with a limit of 20 hrs/wk during term time, and for a maximum of 13 weeks).

   2. Proposals must demonstrate alignment with the UK Government Industrial Strategy (IS8), where the 8 Sectors are defined here.

   3. Proposals must fall within the remit of IDAI. This includes developing interdisciplinary, data-intensive research where AI plays a substantial role, either as a core discipline or as support to discipline-specific applications.

   4. Proposals must make a convincing case for the expected value to the applicants, as well for the expected benefit to the interns. It must outline a realistic path forward past the end of the internship. Examples include starting or cementing collaborations, enabling substantial new grant applications, producing training material that can benefit the research and education community, and more.

   5. Applicants must indicate a target starting date and a duration (see note above) and must name the recipient(s) of the internships. These PGT or PhD students must be in a position to accept the offer without delays by the start date.

2. Additional criteria

   1. Evidence of external engagement and collaborations. These can be with businesses and other non-academic entities, or with external academic partners.

   2. Usage of the Baskerville NCR as part of project delivery.

   3. A commitment to produce and deliver, in collaboration with IDAI, reusable Data- and AI-related training material that can be used for researchers training and upskilling.

   4. A commitment to organise events (research dissemination, networking), designed to raise the profile of the University to external audiences, and to deliver them in collaboration with IDAI.

Proposals that meet these additional criteria will be given priority consideration.

How we assess the proposals

The assessment process relies on a new IDAI Review Board, composed of selected colleagues across all disciplines who express their availability to review internship applications. The process aims to fund viable applications as quickly as possible, while ensuring fairness and transparency with respect to potential applicants throughout the financial year, ending 31/07/2027.

To achieve this, applications are reviewed on a monthly basis.

The process is as follows:

1. A portion of the total internship budget is allocated for each period in the remaining financial year. This ensures that all applications received throughout the year can be considered.

2. Proposals are considered at the end of each period. This involves an initial internal review to assess eligibility, followed by a light-touch peer review from members of the Review Board. Applications are ranked based on their reviews, and funding decisions are made against the available budget for the period.

3. Any unspent budget after funding is carried over to the next period. Fundable applications that could not be funded go into the following period’s pool.

Contact information

If you require any further information – or have any questions – please contact the IDAI Operations Team: idai@contacts.bham.ac.uk