Ten ambitious challenge-led projects awarded grants under the UCL Data Empowered Societies programme

20 November 2025

As the third of the evolved Grand Challenge themes to be launched goes into its second year of activity, the Data Empowered Societies (DES) team are delighted to announce that ten projects will be spearheading innovative work across the four focus areas of the DES programme.

These grants follow investment through two funding mechanisms: the DES Challenge Awards and the DES Living Lab.

Challenge Awards

We’ve invested £630,000 in seven interdisciplinary projects that work across three of the DES focus areas: Working and Learning in Data Empowered Societies, Knowing and Deciding with Data, and Data and Social Change.

This followed a two-stage review process of 88 applications by 16 reviewers from across faculties and professional services offices.

What are the Challenge Awards about?

At the heart of the Challenge Award scheme is a focus on centring collaborations between disciplines which:

Consider both technical and social aspects of the challenge being addressed
Articulate scalable outcomes and pathways for future research or wider engagement
Offer a long-term vision for UCL’s investment in the work

The awarded projects are as follows ...

Under the Working and Learning in Data Empowered Societies focus area:

Adolescence, Chatbots and AI Intimacies: Cognitive Behavioural Critical AI Literacies (CB-CAIL) to counter AI Dependency
- Professor Jessica Ringrose - IOE, Department of Education, Practice and Society
- Dr Marc Tibber - Brain Sciences, Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology
From Hybrid Work to Hybrid Workforces: Rethinking Organisational Design for an AI-Augmented Future
- Dr Antoine Vernet, The Bartlett, School of Sustainable Construction
- Dr Jen Rhymer, Engineering Sciences, School of Management
AI and Human-Job Matching: What Makes Humans Succeed in AI-Augmented Work (AI-MATCH)
- Dr Maria del Rio-Chanona, Engineering Sciences, Computer Science
- Dr Suphanit Piyapromdee, Social & Historical Sciences, Economics

Under the Knowing and Deciding with Data focus area:

RiverGuard: Proactive Sensing and Rapid Response for Urban Water Quality
- Dr Izzy Bishop, Life Sciences, Genetics, Evolution & Environment
- Dr Valerio Modugno, Engineering Sciences Computer Science
Global Network-of-Networks for Vector-Borne Disease: Data-Driven Decision-Making Through AI, IoT, and Community Action
- Professor Patty Kostkova, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Department of Risk and Disaster Reduction
- Professor Kate Jones, Life Sciences, Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment

Under the Data and social change focus area:

AI for good and migration dynamics: data-driven models to improve humanitarian response and policy planning across the Channel
- Dr Francois Sicard, Arts & Humanities, Arts & Sciences
- Professor Benjamin Guedj, Engineering Sciences, Computer Science
Dialogic Resonator: Transparent and Collaborative LLM-Enabled Dataflows for Urban Renewal
- Professor David Guile, IOE, Education, Practice and Society,
- Dr Sunny Park, Research Technology Platforms, Advanced Research Computing

Living Lab

We’ve invested just over £200,000 in three projects which will be carrying out research that uses UCL as a ‘living laboratory’ to tackle challenges, right here at UCL.

What are the Living Lab projects about?

The overall goal of these projects is to better connect our research and innovation capabilities with strategic challenges and "pain points" from an operational perspective, with a view to scaling up or replicating successful outcomes. Within the context of Data Empowered Societies, it therefore works to advance our fourth focus area: Data Empowered Organisations.