Collaborating Across Borders: International AI Grant Partnerships

Four countries, six research teams, and $6 million committed to building AI systems that help farmers predict crop disease before it spreads. That is the Quad AI-ENGAGE initiative in a single sentence -- and it is one of at least a dozen active programs funding American researchers to build AI with partners in Europe, Asia, and the Commonwealth. The federal appetite for cross-border AI collaboration has never been larger, but the mechanics of assembling an international team remain genuinely difficult.

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The money is real. So are the bureaucratic landmines around intellectual property, visa access, and mismatched fiscal calendars. Here is how the current landscape breaks down.

The US-UK Technology Prosperity Deal and NSF-UKRI Supplements

The September 2025 US-UK Technology Prosperity Deal created the most concrete bilateral AI research pipeline the two countries have ever had. The deal backs a flagship AI for Science program linking NSF, the Department of Energy, and NIH with their UK counterparts, focused initially on biotechnology, precision medicine, and automated laboratories.

The funding mechanism that matters most right now is NSF's Center-to-Centre supplement, which offers up to $500,000 in add-on funding for existing large-scale NSF awardees to partner with UKRI AI Hubs and Quantum Technology Research Hubs. If your institution already runs an NSF AI Research Institute or a comparable center-scale award, this is the fastest path to funded UK collaboration. Requests must arrive by March 1, 2026 for consideration in the current fiscal year, with a hard cutoff of May 1.

Separately, the National Endowment for the Humanities and AHRC are jointly funding research into AI's societal impacts through a humanities lens. US-based principal investigators can request up to $75,000 from NEH (or $150,000 with two or more US PIs). Proposals go through the AHRC submission system, with UK partners applying in parallel. This is a narrow program, but it is one of the few that funds social scientists and humanists working on AI governance -- a gap most STEM-oriented funders ignore entirely.

Quad AI-ENGAGE: The Four-Nation Agricultural AI Program

NSF, Japan's JST, Australia's CSIRO, and India's ICAR launched AI-ENGAGE as the first use-inspired research collaboration under the Quad framework. The program funds teams building AI, robotics, and sensing technologies for agriculture -- specifically tools that help farmers improve productivity, sustainability, and climate resilience.

NSF invested $2.4 million across six international awards. US PIs can request up to $400,000 over three years; Japanese partners can request up to 60 million yen from JST for the same period. Each funded project must include researchers from at least two Quad nations.

The first awards were announced in early 2026. For researchers who missed this round, the program signals a durable commitment. CSIRO has publicly stated it will continue supporting AI projects under the Quad initiative, and the structure -- a joint call with synchronized review across four agencies -- is designed to be repeatable.

Beyond agriculture, the NSF-JST bilateral pipeline extends into information and communications research through the VINES program. US researchers can receive approximately $750,000 from NSF, with Japanese counterparts funded separately by JST. Research periods start from April 2026 and run three years.

Horizon Europe: What US Teams Can Actually Access

The European Commission adopted a 14 billion euro Horizon Europe work programme for 2026-2027, with a dedicated 90 million euro call on AI in science covering trustworthy AI applications in advanced materials, agriculture, and healthcare.

US researchers can join the majority of Horizon Europe consortia, but the terms are specific. American participants enter as Associated Partners -- they do not sign the grant agreement and they do not receive EU funding directly. They must bring their own money, typically through NSF supplements, institutional support, or existing federal awards that permit international travel and collaboration.

That self-funding requirement sounds like a dealbreaker, but in practice it works. Joining a Horizon Europe consortium gives US researchers access to European datasets, testing infrastructure, and co-authorship on papers with leading EU groups. The National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) serves as the US National Contact Point for Horizon Europe and can help navigate the application process. The real value is strategic positioning: teams that participate as unfunded partners in one Horizon cycle often become named collaborators on subsequent bilateral grants where EU money does flow to non-EU institutions.

US-Canada AI and Quantum Science Collaboration

NSF and Canada's Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) run a collaborative research opportunity specifically targeting AI and quantum science. The program uses a lead agency model: US and Canadian researchers submit a single joint proposal to NSF, which handles the review. If selected, the US side receives NSF funding while Canadian researchers receive an NSERC Alliance grant.

Grants run one to five years. The lead agency model removes the biggest friction point in bilateral proposals -- dual review processes with different timelines and criteria. For AI researchers near the Canadian border or with existing Canadian collaborators, this is the lowest-overhead international funding mechanism available.

IP, Visas, and the Details That Derail Teams

Cross-border AI grants carry two risks that domestic proposals do not: intellectual property disputes and immigration bottlenecks.

On IP, the Bayh-Dole Act governs inventions from federally funded research, granting US institutions ownership while reserving a government license. But Bayh-Dole was written for domestic labs. When a UK postdoc working in a US-funded project develops a patentable algorithm at a British university, the question of which country's IP framework applies gets complicated fast. NSF AI Research Institute awards explicitly require awardees to grant industry sponsors a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to resulting IP. Teams should negotiate IP ownership in the consortium agreement before the first line of code is written, not after a breakthrough.

On visas, AI researchers face a narrowing pipeline. The O-1A visa -- the primary route for researchers with extraordinary ability -- now explicitly recognizes peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, and government-funded grants as qualifying evidence. But processing times remain unpredictable, and smaller institutions lack the legal resources to shepherd applications. NSF's International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) program, which funds semester-long research exchanges, sidesteps some of these issues by placing US students abroad rather than bringing foreign collaborators stateside. Note that there will be no IRES competition in FY2026 -- the next proposal deadline is October 26, 2026.

Budget for these complications. Proposals that include a line item for IP counsel and immigration support signal to reviewers that the team understands what international collaboration actually requires.

Whether you are pursuing a bilateral supplement or assembling a four-nation Quad team, Granted can help you identify the right funding vehicle and structure a proposal that accounts for the cross-border complexities most applicants overlook.