An institute studying human-AI cooperation itself — NSF AI grant $5M (University of Delaware; ~$21.5M planned)
NSF awarded $5 million to the "NSF AI Institute for Human-AI Cooperation" at the University of Delaware. Made under NSF's flagship AI Research Institutes program, the award has an estimated total of $21.5 million and runs from July 2026 to June 2031.
Grant overview (primary data)
- Award amount$5,000,000 / Est. total $21,500,000
- RecipientUniversity of Delaware (Delaware)
- ProgramAI Research Institutes
- Period2026-07-15 〜 2031-06-30
- FunderU.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) / NSF
Key points
- NSF Award 2433450, "NSF AI Institute for Human-AI Cooperation," to the University of Delaware (DE).
- Program: NSF's flagship AI Research Institutes — multi-institution, center-type funding.
- Obligated $5,000,000 against an estimated total of $21,500,000 — obligated year by year.
- Period: July 15, 2026 to June 30, 2031, about five years.
- No abstract is included in this dataset; see the official NSF page for detail.
- Across the 120 NSF AI-related awards this site holds as of 2026-09-01, the median from decision to start is 19 days, and six begin before the decision.
1The AI Research Institutes as a flagship program
NSF's AI Research Institutes program funds not single research projects but centers in which several institutions work together on one theme over several years. The scope includes education and dissemination as well as research, and awards are correspondingly large. The five-year span here (July 2026 to June 2031) is typical of center-type funding.
2What the gap between obligated and estimated tells you
The record carries two figures: $5,000,000 already obligated and an estimated total of $21,500,000. The difference reflects how multi-year center awards are obligated year by year. In other words, when reading a dollar figure in public data, it matters whether it is what has been paid out so far or the size of the whole plan. The amounts shown on this site's grant pages are obligated funds.
3The theme of human-AI cooperation
The institute is named for Human-AI Cooperation — how people and AI work together. That framing puts the relationship in use at the center rather than the performance of the AI itself. The specific research plan is not in this dataset, which carries no abstract, so consult the official NSF page (Award 2433450) for detail.
4A median of 19 days from decision to start
Across the 120 NSF AI-related awards this site holds as of 2026-09-01, the days between the award date and the start date run to a median of 19. The longest is 186 days and the shortest is minus 148 — six records begin before the award was made.
Most begin soon after the decision. A start date preceding the award date means the work was already under way and the formal decision was applied retroactively. Read from the dates alone it looks contradictory; what it shows is that the order of the paperwork and the order of the work differ.
Why it matters
Center-type AI funding moves people and equipment on a longer horizon than single-year grants, which makes it a useful signal when looking for research or industry partners. Note that amounts in public data are obligated funds, not the total planned — a basic caution when comparing scale.
FAQ
What are the AI Research Institutes?
Why do the obligated and estimated amounts differ?
Where can I read what the research covers?
Sources (primary)
Source: NSF Award Search (U.S. National Science Foundation, public domain). Amounts are the obligated amount. For privacy, we do not handle principal investigator names.
- NSF Award (original, official)
- NSF Award ID: 2433450