The Workforce Lab at Slack Academic Grant Program

The Workforce Lab at Slack is dedicated to understanding the modern landscape of work, with an emphasis on making work simpler, more pleasant, and more productive. We are excited to announce our inaugural grant program for academics.

 

Congratulations to our grant winners!

Grant winners were selected in June 2024. All recipients will be presenting the results of their work at a forthcoming webinar. 

• “Anthropomorphizing AI agents to achieve human-AI harmony — boom or bust?” by Marlo Raveendran (University of California Riverside) and Inna Smirnova (University of Michigan)
• “Collaborative creative portfolio reviewing with generative AI” by Marlon Twyman and Angel Hwang (University of Southern California Los Angeles)
• “Enhancing team effectiveness and cohesion with AI-generated automated feedback” by Diego Gomez-Zara (Notre Dame University)

 

Grant FAQ

What topics will be funded?

Submissions should address issues concerning AI and its impact on the modern landscape of work or the employee experience. Topics may include how AI impacts: 

• Knowledge worker productivity
• Supporting collaborative work
• Employee well-being and success

What can I use the grant for?

Funds may be used for: personnel support (Ph.D. students, post-docs, or research scientists), data collection, participant incentives, publishing fees, and conference travel.

 

How much will the grant award be?

A one-time disbursement of $10,000 USD will be provided. 

 

What are the requirements?

The proposed project must meet the following requirements:

• Grant must be submitted by a full-time tenure-track professor at an accredited U.S. university. Part-time staff, adjuncts, students, post-docs, lecturers, or teaching-only staff are not eligible. 
• Funds must be used within 6 months.
• Professors from any department or discipline are eligible, but we especially welcome proposals from those in the social sciences, computer science, information, design, sociology, communication, psychology, business, economics, and management.

 

What happens after the award is made?

After funds are released, grant recipients will be asked to meet with a research partner from Workforce Lab once per month for a status update. After 6 months, recipients will be required to present the final results of their work in a public-facing webinar sponsored by the Workforce Lab, Slack, and Salesforce. 

 

How do I apply?

Please submit a 4 page proposal (2000 words max). Your proposal should include the following sections:

Motivation and research question: What research question would you like to answer? Why is that question important to answer?

Methodology: How will you answer your research question? What specific methods will you use? Why will you use those methods?

Possible findings: What might you find? How might these findings be used to improve the world of work?

Dissemination plan: Where do you hope to publish or share the results of your research?

Roles and responsibilities: Who will perform the work? How does their background enable them to do the work? How much time will they spend on it?

Budget: How will you use the $10,000? What other funds will be used for the work, if any?

In addition, please submit CVs of all named investigators. (These do not count towards the word limit.) No text that exceeds the word limit will be considered.

All submissions should be sent to workforce-lab-academics@salesforce.com. Questions regarding the program should be direct to mike.massimi@salesforce.com.

 

Timeline

• March 27 – Request for proposals goes live.
• May 31 – Proposals due.
• June 14 – Winners announced.
• December 2024 – Winners present their final reports via a Slack-sponsored webinar.