Call for proposals: New €2m Building Narrative Power funding and learning programme

For too long the Big Tech industry has dominated our understanding of Artificial Intelligence. To counter this, the European AI & Society Fund is launching the Building Narrative Power programme to help people and communities shape new ways of thinking and talking about the technology we want. 

The €2 million Building Narrative Power funding and learning programme offers grants of up to €150,000 for organisations across Europe to develop and test narrative strategies around three areas where AI’s impacts are most keenly felt: data centres, jobs and young people’s lives. Deadline for first-stage applications is 31 August 2026. 

The European AI & Society Fund’s strategy is to build the power of the public interest community to shape the direction of AI in Europe. Narratives are an important part of creating the conditions to have a greater say over how AI is adopted and used in our societies.  

The Big Tech industry has a well-resourced and long-term strategy to establish framings that work to its benefit. We now need to invest in building alternatives to challenge them.  

Just as the current dominant narratives serve the tech industry, our new narratives must serve the public. For that, we need to meet people where they are. Understand what matters to them and why. And craft narratives that can move people from opinion to action, creating political pressure that mobilises decisionmakers. 

Three issues to spark new AI narratives

We have chosen three themes where research indicates the public already feels strongly about the impacts of AI: the expansion of data centres, the impact of AI on jobs and how AI affects young people’s lives. This creates an opportunity for organisations to engage communities about how AI affects them now – and what they wish for from these technologies in the future.

1.Supporting communities to engage with data centre expansion 

Amid a push for AI adoption, data centres that provide the computing infrastructure for AI have mushroomed across Europe – and the EU aims to triple their number in the next 5-7 years. Around proposed data centre sites, increased pollution, energy prices and compromised access to the grid for other public amenities have mobilised communities across the political spectrum. We welcome proposals that want to explore narrative questions around data centres and help move communities beyond a strategy of resistance to one of engagement to shape data centre expansion. 

2. Putting people’s needs at the heart of the debate around AI and jobs  

AI’s effect on jobs is one of the most frequently mentioned concerns in public opinion research, with 57% of the public in a recent study expressing concern about how AI will change employment, a sentiment more pronounced in people with lower-incomes. Notably however this is not just about job displacement but also the quality and nature of work, including people’s sense of autonomy and dignity. We welcome proposals to build narrative power to help move the debate from a generalised anxiety around AI and jobs into a mobilising issue that can actively shape the future of work.

3.Creating space for stories and imagining AI that could better serve young people 

Young people will be the community most affected by AI’s impacts and so their views should be integral to shaping it. Concerns about mental health and child sexual abuse have led to a politically live debate around social media bans. But in this often-strident discussion the wider views and needs of young people are rarely heard. And beyond social media, young people also encounter AI in education, in their friendships and in their future careers – questions which get far less attention. We welcome proposals that will explore how to build narratives that could help young people to shape the technologies that will so greatly influence their lives. 

Sharing new AI stories across Europe 

Organisations selected for a Building Narrative Power grant will join a learning programme, sharing their experiences with others working across different issues and in different places. This community of practice will support each other as they deliver their project, and reflect on which strategies and stories have most salience. These findings will help the European AI & Society Fund and other funders to better understand how we can support work to shift narrative power over AI. 

>> Find out more about the Building Narrative Power programme.