The University of Alaska Anchorage Alaska AI Solutions Consortium (AISC) is accepting community partner Statements of Need for its RAISE Mini Grants 2026–2027 cycle. The program supports applied artificial intelligence projects addressing problems in Alaska and is funded through UAA’s Rural AI Solutions & Engagement Project under NSF Award #2433241.
Who can participate
The official UAA call states that the community partner may be any Alaskan organization outside the university, including large or small businesses, Alaska Native organizations, K–12 education organizations, government entities, nonprofit organizations, and UA research centers.
Funding
UAA describes the program as providing seed funding to encourage further research and collaboration. The current public 2026–2027 call does not publish a per-project award amount or maximum. Atlas therefore does not infer an award ceiling from prior cycles.
Deadlines
The official UAA page lists the Partner Statement of Need deadline as September 21, 2026 and the Full Proposal deadline as October 7, 2026. It does not publish a clock time or time zone for either deadline. Atlas therefore does not infer one.
The award announcement is scheduled for November 2, 2026, followed by a project update or presentation on March 1, 2027 and final report on July 15, 2027.
Application process
Step 1 is submission of the community partner’s Statement of Need describing a project or problem to be solved using AI. A partner already working with a UAA faculty member may proceed directly to proposal development. Otherwise, UAA matches the Statement of Need with UAA faculty member or members who can facilitate the project. The community partner and UAA faculty then develop the proposal, and the full proposal is submitted by UAA faculty.
The current public call links to a UAA Qualtrics portal for Statement of Need submission. The public call does not publish a separate mandatory attachment list, match or cost-share percentage, or detailed budget ceiling. Applicants should rely on the live submission portal and UAA instructions for any project-specific fields or materials.
Healthcare and school relevance
The program expressly permits K–12 organizations and is broad enough to support healthcare, behavioral health, aging, disability, rural-service, and other community projects when the project genuinely uses AI to address an Alaska problem. UAA’s 2026 consortium materials highlight prior projects involving AI-assisted behavioral parent training for rural Alaska families, nonprofit healthcare workflow improvement, aging-in-place needs, healthcare access, and community-service analysis, demonstrating legitimate healthcare and education relevance without making those sectors exclusive.
Atlas assessment
Atlas Opportunity Score: 90/100. This is a flexible Alaska-specific applied AI collaboration opportunity with broad community-partner eligibility, explicit K–12 eligibility, demonstrated healthcare and rural-community use cases, and a structured UAA faculty partnership model.
N9+ Fit Score: 58/100 conditional. A legitimate Nonagon N9+ device and platform role could exist only in a carefully defined healthcare project where remote examination data, connected-care workflows, or related clinical information meaningfully support the proposed AI research question. The current program does not specifically solicit remote-exam technology or guarantee that N9+ costs are allowable, so Atlas does not force the fit.
Outreach control: The official UAA page does not state the deadline time zone. Under current Atlas controls, that means no new applicant outreach queue should be created unless the exact deadline time zone is authoritatively verified.
Official source: University of Alaska Anchorage — RAISE Mini Grants 2026 Community Partner Call.