Sustainable Research Pathways for NAIRR: Expanding the NAIRR Community

The National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot launched in January 2024 to provide a shared national research infrastructure to bridge the gap in access to artificial intelligence (AI) resources for conducting research and training the next generation of researchers. The NAIRR Pilot is designed to spur innovation, increase the pool of talent, improve capacity, and advance safe, secure, and trustworthy AI in research and society. This project presents new ways of cultivating AI talent to address the pressing challenges facing the nation. It is an innovative evidence-based program to expand access to NAIRR Pilot by matching NAIRR researchers with faculty and students who are not currently engaged in the NAIRR Pilot and are from a variety of academic institutions across the U.S. The project enables establishment of research collaborations through a 10-week summer experience followed by presentation of the participants’ results at a national professional society conference. The Sustainable Research Pathways for the NAIRR (SRP-NAIRR) provides pathways to NAIRR resources by matching researchers with existing NAIRR Pilot projects with faculty and students who are new to NAIRR Pilot, to establish research collaborations through a 10-week summer experience followed by the presentation of participants’ results at a national professional society conference. The project builds strong connections among existing NAIRR researchers and new and emerging researchers across the U.S., especially those who do not typically engage in NSF AI research, and widens access to NAIRR Pilot resources by providing training opportunities and building meaningful connections between the researchers. SRP-NAIIR uses evidence-based techniques for recruiting and cultivating talent. SRP-NAIRR focuses on three main ideas: 1) recruiting faculty/student teams and independent students from all kinds of backgrounds and institution types, 2) establishing meaningful collaborations through an iterative and successively more intimate two-way matching process, and 3) catalyzing the development of innovative ecosystems that are welcoming to all. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.