Request for Applications

AI in Medical Education: A Grants Program to Advance Innovation in Medical Education

We are now accepting letters of intent
Deadline to submit an LOI: February 3, 2025


Artificial intelligence (AI) is a rapidly evolving, broadly disruptive force that can and should be harnessed to optimize health and health care for everyone. This requires health professions leaders and educators to embrace AI now, integrating it into the education and training of future health care professionals and preparing them to provide patient-centered care in the 21st century.

As a follow-up to its recent conference on AI in Medical Education, the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation is pleased to announce a special initiative to fund demonstration projects that explore the potential uses and applications of AI to improve the implementation, outcomes, and experiences of faculty and learners in medical education. The goal is to advance our understanding of what responsible, effective, and ethical use of AI in medical education will look like in the immediate future. This proposal is intended to support demonstration projects on the utilization of AI to improve the process of education for learners across the continuum, as well as the development of innovative curricula helping learners utilize AI effectively and responsibly in their clinical practice.

AI in Medical Education: A Grants Program to Advance Innovation in Medical Education will provide support for three demonstration projects, each supported at up to $100K/year for two years, inclusive of indirect costs capped at 10%. Proposals selected for support through this initiative will describe, implement, and evaluate innovative strategies to integrate AI into medical education and prepare current and future physicians on the ethical utilization of AI to improve patient care.

Examples of demonstration projects supported via this initiative could include but are in no way limited to:

  • Curriculum to build data literacy and critical thinking about AI algorithms and their outputs, including the recognition of and mitigation of AI biases in patient care
  • Developing an oversight structure to ensure inclusion, equity, and ethical use of AI in medical education
  • Efforts to better understand the competencies associated with being an effective clinician with AI serving as a “co-pilot”
  • Role of AI in competency-based assessment and learning outcomes
  • Utilization of AI in selection into medical school and GME training programs
  • Utilization of AI for coaching and feedback of learners
  • Development of AI systems to improve patient communication and shared decision-making skills.
  • Initiatives to support faculty development in their role teaching learners to use AI in clinical care

How to Apply:

  • The application portal will open on Thursday, November 21, 2024
  • Letters of intent will be due on Monday, February 3, 2025 by 5:00pm ET (NOTE: this is not a limited opportunity – more than one letter of intent from a single institution is allowed)
  • Those selected to provide a full board grant application will be notified on Monday, March 3, 2025
  • Full board grant proposals will be due on Wednesday, April 23, 2025
  • Three projects will be selected to receive up to $100K annually over a two-year project period from June 15, 2025 – June 14, 2027

Informational Webinar:

You can learn more about the AI in Medical Education RFA from our December 10 webinar featuring Macy Chief Program Officer Dana Levinson, MPH, alongside members of the Macy Conference planning committee Drs. Eva Aagaard and Cornelius James:

Selection Criteria:

Grant applications will be evaluated based on:

  • Direct application to the experience of medical learners
  • Evidence of organizational facilities, resources (intellectual, material), and environment available to achieve the aims/goals of the project. This includes support of the IRB to use student information in a secure LLM instance if possible, as well as appropriate IT infrastructure.
  • For programs that will require the use of a secure AI system, a letter of support from institutional IT ensuring a HIPAA and FERPA-compliant language model
  • Feasible scope of the project given resources, timeline, and deliverables
  • Innovation
  • Sustainability after the period of project support ends, including evidence of institutional commitment such as matching support
  • Strong evidence of replicability, generalizability, and scalability

Priority will be given to those projects which meet the following criteria

  • Demonstrated link to improved educational outcomes
  • Demonstrated link to improved clinical practice and patient outcomes
  • Relationship to one or more of the three Macy priority areas
  • Multi-institutional
  • Co-created with the participation of learners
Learn more about Our Grantees