Advancing Research in Language and AI with 5 New Imminent Grants

Translated announced the winners of the fifth edition of the Imminent Research Grants, its flagship research program led by the company’s research center, Imminent. The program supports independent, high-impact research at the intersection of language, neuroscience, economics, and artificial intelligence, contributing to a scientific understanding of how language technologies shape cognition, society, and global markets at a time when advances in AI are rapidly redefining how machines learn, reason, and interact with human knowledge.

From the first edition to today, more than 20 research projects have been funded, for a total investment of $500,000. Each edition expands a growing global research network and strengthens Translated’s commitment to open science, independent inquiry, and research that informs the future of language technology.

The fifth edition allocates $100,000 in grants, supporting research that connects theoretical advances with measurable real-world outcomes, from the neuroscience of bilingual translation to the economics of multilingual AI and new methodologies for evaluating machine translation systems.

“Language is the most human thing we have and the most important factor in human evolution — said Translated’s CEO Marco Trombetti — Investing in it means investing in how people think, connect, and act. In many cases, it also means investing in solutions that have significant social impact. For us, this is part of a significant research investment we have been making over the last twenty years.”

• Neuroscience of Language

• • Seth Aycock, PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam, studies how the human brain and large language models process bilingual translation of multi-word expressions.
  • Michelle Cohn, Assistant Project Scientist at the UC Davis Phonetics Lab and specialist at the UCSF Vonk Lab, investigates how native and non-native speakers evaluate the accuracy and trustworthiness of LLM-based translation.

• Language Economics

• • Joel Naoki Ernesto Cristoph, PhD candidate at the European University Institute, is developing a quantitative framework to estimate the global economic value of inclusive multilingual AI.
  • Bryan Villafuerte and Mauro Zegarra lead LinguaEconomy, a project focused on quantifying the economic impact of language on global trade efficiency through a Global Linguistic Efficiency Index for Trade.

• Machine Learning Algorithms for Translation

• • Luca Benedetto, Maître de conférences at Télécom SudParis and visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge, is developing an adaptive evaluation framework designed to improve the efficiency and reliability of machine translation assessment.

These awards are part of a broader, long-term research investment strategy at Translated, which is currently investing heavily in DVPS, one of the largest Europe-funded initiatives to date, bringing together twenty leading partners across nine countries to deliver the next generation AI foundational model.

Translated research initiatives and activities have led over time to technologies that became widely used by professional translators and companies worldwide, including Matecat and ModernMT, and most recently Lara, which builds on and extends the research and engineering foundations developed through ModernMT.

More information about the Imminent Research Grants winners is available on the Imminent website.

The next Imminent Research Grants call will open on April 1, 2026, and will remain open until fall 2026. Researchers and interested readers can stay informed by subscribing to the Imminent Newsletter.