Professor Nehal Bhuta to lead research cluster in £10 million Leverhulme Centre winning bid on Artificial Intelligence and Society

Professor Nehal Bhuta, Edinburgh’s Chair of Public International Law, will lead a research group at the newly-established Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life (CAL). On the 9 April, the Leverhulme Trust Board announced that CAL was among the three winners of the 2025 Leverhulme Research Centre competition. Each centre will be funded for up to £10 million over ten years to support fundamental cross-disciplinary research in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

CAL will be directed by renowned scholar of AI and society, Professor Louise Amoore of Durham University. Based at Durham, CAL will bring together senior scholars from sociology, philosophy, linguistics, computer science, mathematics, business and law, to lead research clusters concerned with the ways in which AI will transform what it means to be human in critical domains of knowledge and practice such as law, employment, and language acquisition. Edinburgh University, York University, Duke University (North Carolina) and the University of Amsterdam, will collaborate with Durham University in executing CAL’s program of research over 10 years. 

Professor Bhuta will lead a research cluster devoted to “decisions,” which will examine how algorithmic life is changing the character of high-stakes decisions – such as targeting in warfare - through the hybrid knowledges of humans and algorithms. Professor Bhuta will recruit several post-doctoral fellows and PhD students over the life of the Centre, to address these questions.

Professor Bhuta said, “I am thrilled to be participating in this exciting 10-year journey of interdisciplinary research. The Centre for Algorithmic Life brings together an exceptional collection of scholars from a range of institutions and disciplines, to ask and answer a fundamental question for our time: how can we, and should we, live with and alongside algorithmic technologies in many domains of our lives?”

Since 2015, this competition has aimed to encourage original research which would establish or reshape a significant field of study and transform our understanding of an important topic in contemporary society. The Leverhulme Trust supports fundamental, curiosity-driven research, which is often multidisciplinary, ambitious and high-risk. Therefore, applicants were invited to be bold when compiling their proposals. While applications strongly led by the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences were encouraged in this particular call, the specific choice of research topic was left deliberately open, in line with the Trust’s responsive mode of operation. The quality of the bids received was phenomenally high, and selecting the three winners was incredibly challenging.

Professor Anna Vignoles, Director of the Trust, said: “Over the last decade, the Trust has awarded £100 million to set up ten UK-based Leverhulme Research Centres. These centres are bold and interdisciplinary; they embrace novel approaches and have reshaped and established new fields. In our centenary year, the Trust Board is proud to invest a further £30 million to fund three new centres across the arts, humanities and social sciences that seek to transform our understanding by addressing vital issues, such as how slavery in war can be forecasted and tackled.”

Other 2025 Leverhulme Research Centres are the Leverhulme Centre for Humanity and Space, based at University of Leicester, and the Leverhulme Centre for Research on Slavery in War, led by the King’s College London and University of Nottingham.

Learn more about Professor Bhuta’s work

Professor Nehal Bhuta | Staff Profile

Learn more about the Leverhulme Research Centres

£30 million investment for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences | Leverhulme Trust