The award is open to applicants who meet the following criteria: 

• They have a budgetary appointment at either the University of Toronto OR an external funding partner institution. U of T faculty budgetary appointments for the University of Toronto are continuing, full-time academic appointments with salary commitments from a University of Toronto academic unit. 
• They are eligible Principal Investigators, according to the University of Toronto PI eligibility criteria. 
• They are members of the DSI. 
• Researchers can only apply as PI (NPI or Co-PI) on one proposal per round. 
• Tri-Agency and External Grants: The goal of the DSI and other institutional strategic initiatives is to support new research teams with initial seed funding, enabling new collaborations and research projects to progress to a point where team members can apply for larger, external research funds. For each PI on your team, provide evidence that they have either secured or applied for one external funding grant as a lead applicant in the past three years. Provide the name of the PI, the agency, and the name of the grant proposal. Your responses to this question will undergo an administrative check, in consultation with your faculty or research institute as required, to determine your team’s eligibility to be funded via the DSI.  

Applications are submitted via the DSI Good Grants application portal.

Register an account and select “Start Application” for “Claude API Credit Award.”

The application is divided into tabs; each tab includes a set of instructions and fields to fill out. These instructions are also highlighted below.

Applicants will need to complete the following fields.

Tab 1: Start Here

• Project Title

Tab 2: Administrative Information

Abstract: Enter a short abstract (200 words max).

Keywords: Enter domain and methodology keywords for your proposal.

Tri-Agency and External Grants: The goal of the DSI and other institutional strategic initiatives is to support new research teams with initial seed funding, enabling new collaborations and research projects to progress to a point where team members can apply for larger, external research funds. For each PI on your team, provide evidence that they have either secured or applied for one external funding grant as a lead applicant in the past three years. Provide the name of the PI, the agency, and the name of the grant proposal. Your responses to this question will undergo an administrative check, in consultation with your faculty or research institute as required, to determine your team’s eligibility to be funded via the DSI.

Terms and Conditions: Verify that you have read and agree to Claude’s terms and conditions. 

Tab 3: Team Information

You will need the following information for all PIs and trainees:

• Role
• Name
• Email
• Institution
• Division (if applicable)
• Unit (if applicable)

Tab 4: Proposal

A. Project Type: Is this a Claude Code or a Claude Research project?

B. Project Description (maximum 500 words): comment on the following:

• Project rationale
• Research objectives

C. Purpose of Claude Credits (Maximum 500 words): Specify how the credits will be used, in terms of both methodology and impact. 

D. Amount: Indicate the total amount requested in Canadian Dollars (CAD).

E. Budget Justification (maximum 500 words): Provide a description of how you intend to spend down the credits. This may include descriptions of workflows, user counts, data volume, and so on. Claude Code users may wish to consult Anthropic’s documentation regarding costs and budgeting. 

F. AI Safety (maximum 500 words): Provide a description of how your group will maintain safe AI practices. If you feel this question is not relevant to your project, please explain why.

Tab 5: CVs

Upload pdf CVs for each of the PIs.

Demographic Survey

It is mandatory that all PI applicants fill out a brief Demographic Survey as part of any DSI application. Team members without a survey response on file will receive an email with instructions to complete this component of the application after the deadline, alongside a confirmation email to the team noting the missing surveys and any other minor errata. PI applicants with a response on file are always welcome to request a link to update their responses.

The DSI will form a Review Committee to lead the review of all eligible proposals received by the submission deadline. Reviewers are asked to consider the project rationale and budget justification and the extent to they align with the Claude API Credit Award program. Applications for the Claude Code tier may be awarded on a rolling basis. Applications for the Claude Research tier will be evaluated after the deadline.