Cybersecurity and AI

UC Noyce Initiative 2025-26 
Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence
Call for Applications

Important Dates 

• September 25, 2025: Funding Opportunity Announced.
• November 21, 2025: Full Proposals Due. (Applications accepted only via UC Davis InfoReady Platform)
• March 2026: Award Start Date. (Awardees will be notified via email)

Overview 

The UC Noyce Initiative, a partnership among five University of California campuses — Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara — honors the legacy of Robert N. Noyce and Ann S. Bowers by catalyzing high-impact research in digital technology and innovation. As AI technologies scale rapidly and digital infrastructure faces escalating cybersecurity threats, the Initiative is prioritizing collaborative research to address foundational challenges at the intersection of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. This focus aims to develop ethical, scalable, and secure technological solutions for the public good. Building on Noyce’s legacy as a semiconductor pioneer who helped launch the modern computing era, the Initiative now turns to the future of intelligent, secure, and trustworthy systems. In today’s digital landscape, AI is not only reshaping science, medicine, and industry, it is also introducing new vulnerabilities. Malicious actors exploit weaknesses in automated systems, sensitive data is increasingly at risk, and the infrastructure supporting critical decision-making is often opaque and difficult to secure. These are systemic, intricately connected issues and addressing them demands deep collaboration. 

In 2026, the UC Noyce Initiative will support research efforts that tackle one or more of the following grand challenges in AI-driven cybersecurity and trustworthy systems:

Challenge 1: AI-Driven Cybersecurity at Scale and Speed 

As cyber threats become more sophisticated and pervasive, traditional security tools struggle to keep pace. The challenge is to create AI systems that can protect computer systems against attack, including autonomously detecting, preventing, and/or responding to cyber intrusions in real time, across distributed and complex environments. This includes advancing threat analysis, threat intelligence, vulnerability detection, secure code generation, anomaly detection, and reinforcement learning methods that can prevent or adapt to evolving threats with low latency and minimal false positives. These intelligent agents must be computationally efficient and capable of scalable deployment in high-speed operational settings.

Challenge 2: Privacy for AI Systems 

AI’s reliance on large datasets clashes with growing demands for privacy, especially in sectors like healthcare, finance and others. UC Noyce invited proposals focused on designing, deploying, and evaluating generative AI systems that can learn from and operate on sensitive data without compromising privacy during training or inference. Proposers are encouraged to explore a broad range of privacy-enhancing technologies that balance utility and privacy, including novel architectures, algorithms, or agent-based systems, so as to support responsible, private, and secure use of AI in sensitive domains, and across a range of devices and AI-assisted applications.

Challenge 3: Securing the AI/ML Pipeline for Societal-Scale Systems 

From model training to deployment, every stage of the AI/ML lifecycle is susceptible to manipulation and attack. This challenge calls for researchers to identify security challenges, and the development of novel methods to protect AI systems against attack. Security challenges can include, but are not limited to, protecting LLM-powered workflows and agents against attack, improving the security and robustness of AI/ML models, adversarial machine learning, and/or end-to-end secure AI/ML pipelines that can resist security challenges including, but not limited to, data poisoning, adversarial inputs, insecure updates, and robust data provenance, among others. As AI systems increasingly operate in interconnected, multi-agent environments, researchers must also confront the complexity of emergent behaviors and system-level vulnerabilities. By supporting work in these three areas, the UC Noyce Initiative seeks to advance the science of trustworthy, secure, and ethical AI. The goal is not just technical innovation but building ethical, scalable, and secure technological solutions that earn public trust and safeguard democratic and societal values in an increasingly automated world.

Award Details 

The UC Noyce Initiative anticipates awarding up to three multi-campus partnership awards. Partnerships must focus on addressing one of the challenges outlined above and include at least three Initiative campuses. Partnerships can request up to $600,000 over the one-year award duration.

Eligibility 

1. Principal Investigator (PI) status at one of the Initiative campuses.
2. A researcher may only serve as PI on one application but may be listed as a collaborator in more than one proposal.
3. Current and previous UC Noyce Initiative award recipients are eligible to apply.

How to submit your application 

Proposals must be submitted online at: https://ucdavis.infoready4.com/ on the UC Davis Administered Programs InfoReady Review page by the listed deadlines. 

Apply Now

Be sure to include the following information: 

1. Proposal Title: Please insert the title of your proposal
2. Have you received funding from the UC Noyce Initiative: (Yes/No). Please note this will be used for Initiative tracking purposes only.
3. PI Names and Campuses: Please enter the names and campus affiliations for all PIs on the application.

Challenge Area: 

• AI-driven Cybersecurity at Scale and Speed
• Balancing Data Privacy with AI Utility
• Securing the AI/ML Pipeline for Societal-Scale Systems    

Abstract: 

Please outline why the research is needed/important and the potential broader impact it would have on society; an overview of the scientific methods to be used; and a statement about the promise of the proposed project to later leverage additional funding sources from federal or industry sources. (500 words max) 

Impact Statement: 

Explain how the proposed research may have a broader impact on your field, technology, and society. (200 words max)  

Research Narrative: 

The research narrative should include the following information (Five pages max):     

• Background/Rationale
• Research methodology and specific aims   
• Innovation: Highlight the innovation involved in the approach, technology, solution etc.   
• Impact: Explain the potential impacts of this research on your field and society and, if applicable, the translational potential of the proposed research.   
• Collaboration: Explain how the proposed collaboration will advance your research and impact. Please comment also on how the collaboration will work across the campus partners.   
• Please ensure that the research narrative is no longer than five pages not including references using no smaller than 11-pt font and 1-inch margins.    

Budget and Budget Justification: 

Please complete the provided budget template (see InfoReady competition page) to outline how the requested funding will be utilized, as well as a 1-page budget justification briefly explaining the proposed costs in each category. Awards may be used to cover relevant research expenses, including salary support, graduate student/postdoctoral research support, supplies & materials, computing expenses, equipment, publication expenses, and travel costs. Indirect costs should not be included. 

CVs: 

Please provide a CV (five page maximum) for each PI and co-investigators participating on the project. We also welcome NIH or NSF biosketch formats. Be sure to call out any special qualifications that uniquely qualify you for this project.

Review Criteria  

Applications will undergo peer review by faculty in relevant fields from Initiative campuses. The peer reviewers will assess applications on the following review criteria, which applicants are encouraged to consider when developing their proposals.    
The outcome from the review committee will be provided to the UC Noyce Initiative leadership who will finalize the award decisions.  

• Scientific Merit (50% scoring weight)

  Are the proposed approaches and methodologies clearly outlined, scientifically rigorous, and appropriate for the proposed research? Is the problem being addressed important and timely? Is the proposed approach innovative? Are appropriate data protection/management systems in place? If the research involves human subjects, are necessary protections outlined and appropriate?    

• Impact (25% scoring weight)

  How impactful would the proposed research be in advancing knowledge, methodologies and/or technology in the indicated thematic area? What is the translational potential of the proposed research? What is the impact on society? How likely is the proposed research to impact follow-on funding? Are there any transparency, accountability or ethical concerns that may arise from the research? How will your team address these concerns? 

• Strength of the Collaboration (15% scoring weight)

  Does the collaboration across partner campuses strengthen the proposed research? Is the partnership complementary and/or synergistic? Does the proposal outline a meaningful engagement plan across the participating campus partners? 

• Expertise and Capacity (10% scoring weight)

  Do the PIs have the experience and expertise to conduct the proposed research? Does the application include collaborators with complementary expertise and the appropriate levels of support to complete the proposed research? Does the proposal outline that the collaboration has the needed equipment, space, or mechanisms in place to successfully achieve the stated goals? Is the requested budget and justification reasonable and appropriate for the successful completion of the research?

Annual reporting and symposium  

All award recipients will provide an annual progress report. Awardees will also be invited and encouraged to participate in the annual UC Noyce Initiative Symposium.  

Apply Now

Contact information 

For questions about eligibility and application process, contact the UC Noyce Initiative liaison within your campus' Office of Research:

• UC Berkeley: Tyler Martz 
• UC Davis: Ana Lucia Cordova
• UC Irvine: Mike Gallo
• UCSF: Cathy Dunn
• UC Santa Barbara: Maria Napoli 

If you have issues accessing the InfoReady portal, contact ucnoyce-rfps@ucdavis.edu.