The most promising future leaders in AI will be offered an exceptionally generous package of support, as well as priority access to work placements, under a programme announced this week by Cambridge University and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
The Spärck AI Scholarships will receive their first cohort of students in 2026, with the intention of enrolling 100 scholars over the programme’s first four years. Qualifying students, who will be working towards AI-related Masters degrees, will receive full tuition fees, a living stipend, and placements with leading UK AI companies and government institutions.
The scholarships are named in recognition of Professor Karen Spärck Jones (1935–2007), a pioneering computer scientist whose work laid the foundations for modern search engines and natural language processing. Karen was a Fellow at Darwin from 1968-80, and served as College Librarian from 1973-79.
A Fellow of the British Academy, the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and the European Coordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence, Karen was awarded the Lovelace Medal by the British Computer Society shortly before she died in 2007.
She said of this award:
“I think it’s very important to get more women into computing. My slogan is: Computing is too important to be left to men. I think women bring a different perspective to computing, they are more thoughtful and less inclined to go straight for technical fixes. My belief is that, intellectually, computer science is fascinating – you’re trying to make things that don’t exist.”
