The University of Oxford has been named in a new $50m partnership between OpenAI and 15 top universities to roll out AI tools and accelerate research breakthroughs.

Under a five-year programme, students and faculty staff will gain access to research grant funding, enterprise-level security and AI tools to enhance teaching, learning and research. The initiative builds on Oxford’s investment in strengthening the AI capabilities and skills of all staff and students with its AI & Machine Learning Competency Centre. 

Oxford researchers will receive access to OpenAI’s latest models including o1 and 4o and to accelerate their work. This includes access to ChatGPT Edu, a secure version of ChatGPT for academia, to 3,000 academics and staff after a ‘successful’ pilot scheme.

Research grant funding will be made available through OpenAI’s NextGenAI initiative for Oxford researchers working on collaborative projects with OpenAI.

Anne Trefethen, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Digital, University of Oxford, said: “This new collaboration marks an exciting step forward, offering fresh opportunities to enrich our research, expand our AI capabilities, and foster skill development.

“By working together, we can learn from one another, advancing the frontiers of artificial intelligence, understanding its impact on education and unlocking its vast potential for the benefit of our university community and beyond.”

The collaboration will involve a pilot research project to digitise public domain materials held in the collections of Oxford University’s Bodleian Libraries. The collections which have previously been unavailable online, will become searchable and accessible for students and researchers worldwide. 

One of the collections to be digitised will be 3,500 of the Bodleian’s global dissertations from across disciplines from 1498 – 1884.

Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian, said:  “The Bodleian’s mission is to acquire, preserve and make available knowledge for the benefit of our students, researchers and the wider public.

“Over the centuries we have constantly sought new ways to take this mission forward and have in more recent years been an innovator in the use of technology. This initiative with OpenAI comes as part of this long tradition.”

Other universities named in the partnership include Harvard University in the US and Sciences Po in France.

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