The Huo Family Foundation invites applications for
special projects. These larger and longer-term research awards would allow
researchers of all career stages, collaborating as a multi-disciplinary team
with different expertise and skills, to take an integrated approach to tackle the more difficult
questions in this domain.
Proposals should be tackling key questions within the
broad topic of the effects of usage of and exposure to digital technologies on
brain development and function (including physiological responses), social
behaviour and interactions, and mental health of children and young people.
- Awarded research grants in this area can be held at
colleges, universities and research institutes in the UK and in the US.
Various scientific areas and approaches that are of
particular interest to the Foundation:
Pathways and mechanisms of the effects of the usage of or
exposure to digital technology on brain development and function, social
interactions and behaviour, and on mental health.
The effects of usage of or exposure to digital technology
on key processes such as arousal, attention, learning, reward system,
resilience, sleep.
How different developmental time windows (childhood,
adolescence, early adulthood) might involve different neurodevelopment
processes that can give rise to different susceptibilities.- Developing and using new tools for more accurately
measuring exposure (i.e. usage information) for different forms of digital tech
and environments to reduce bias and improve precision to look at causal
pathways and relationships.
Sufficiently powered studies, and those that take
appropriate account of potential confounding effects.
Work that involves data-sharing partnerships with digital
tech companies to have access to better data.
Combining disciplines and approaches.
Using the latest methods, such as machine learning/AI to
help analyse data to make better inferences/predictions that will generalise.
Project period: Up to 4 years
Anticipated funding: $390,000 per year
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