1,000+ Opportunities
Find the right grant
Search federal, foundation, and corporate grants with AI — or browse by agency, topic, and state.
This listing may be outdated. Verify details at the official source before applying.
Find similar grantsSemantic Forensics (SemaFor) Program is sponsored by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The DARPA Semantic Forensics (SemaFor) program focuses on developing tools and algorithms to detect deepfake photos, videos, and AI-generated text and voice.
Get a weekly digest of new grants like this
A free weekly digest of new foundation and federal funding opportunities as they're added to Granted. Unsubscribe anytime.
Or search similar grants →Extracted from the official opportunity page/RFP to help you evaluate fit faster.
Department of War organization. In the AI Village at DEF CON 32, DARPA and SemaFor performers demonstrated detection technologies that can help people defend against threats posed by deepfakes. Media generation and manipulation technologies are advancing rapidly and purely statistical detection methods are quickly becoming insufficient for identifying falsified media assets.
Detection techniques that rely on statistical fingerprints can often be fooled with limited additional resources (algorithm development, data, or compute). However, existing automated media generation and manipulation algorithms are heavily reliant on purely data driven approaches and are prone to making semantic errors.
For example, generative adversarial network (GAN)-generated faces may have semantic inconsistencies such as mismatched earrings. These semantic failures provide an opportunity for defenders to gain an asymmetric advantage.
A comprehensive suite of semantic inconsistency detectors would dramatically increase the burden on media falsifiers, requiring the creators of falsified media to get every semantic detail correct, while defenders only need to find one, or a very few, inconsistencies. The Semantic Forensics (SemaFor) program seeks to develop forensic semantic technologies to help mitigate online threats perpetuated via synthetic and manipulated media.
These technologies include semantic detection algorithms, which will determine if multi-modal media assets have been generated or manipulated. Attribution algorithms will infer if multi-modal media originates from a particular organization or individual. Characterization algorithms will reason about whether multi-modal media was generated or manipulated for malicious purposes.
To support SemaFor technology transition, DARPA launched two new efforts to help the broader community continue the momentum of defense against manipulated media. The first comprises an analytic catalog containing open-source resources developed under SemaFor for use by researchers and industry. As capabilities mature and become available, they will be added to this repository.
The second comprises an open community research effort called AI Forensics Open Research Challenge Evaluation (AI FORCE), which aims to develop innovative and robust machine learning, or deep learning, models that can accurately detect synthetic AI-generated images.
Through a series of mini challenges, AI FORCE asks participants to build models that can discern between authentic images, including ones that may have been manipulated or edited using non-AI methods, and fully synthetic AI-generated images. Visit the Semantic Forensics website for additional details.
Deepfake defense tech ready for commercialization, transition Demystifying deepfakes | Ep 69 Real or not: Defending authenticity in a digital world (SXSW) Semantic Forensics website Broad Agency Announcement Information Processing Techniques Office
According to the current listing, eligibility includes: The program follows an open research model that invites the participation of academia, industry, and government. Individuals can participate in collaborative challenges. Confirm the full requirements in the official notice before applying.
Semantic Forensics (SemaFor) Program is funded by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Verify program details on the funder's official page before applying.
Start from the official opportunity page linked in this listing — it carries the sponsor's submission instructions.
DPA26BZ06-DV023 is a Direct-to-Phase-II SBIR paying $700,000 over 18 months plus a $500,000 option. The physics demands 256x more transmit power than the systems that qualify you to compete, and DARPA will not accept modeling alone as proof. Here is the eligibility wall, the five engineering problems, and who can realistically win it before the October 21 close.
Read articleRelease 6's SBIR topics got the attention. Its three STTR topics — SHIELDER, fuel-flexible electric propulsion, and hypersonic wind tunnel noise diagnostics — are all Direct-to-Phase-II, all require a research institution to perform at least 30 percent of the work, and all close October 21, 2026. The feasibility gates are the real filter.
Read articleDPA26BZ06-DV026 offers $300,000 at Phase I or $1,800,000 as a single Direct-to-Phase-II tranche with no options. The deliverable is a simulated auction market that measures whether AI agents deceive, collude, or manipulate the humans they serve — measured entirely from the outside. Here is the 90% efficiency gate, the team composition most bidders will get wrong, and why this topic sits in DARPA's biology office.
Read article