Funding success for the Global Centre for Diverse Intelligences

The Global Research Centre for Diverse Intelligences has been awarded $1.19m by Templeton World Charity Foundation (TWCF). St Andrews is one of three Global Diverse Intelligence Hubs announced by TWCF, the others being Macquarie University (Asia) and Princeton University (North America). 

The award will allow a seed funding research programme, international collaboration across different fields, exchanges of staff and students with other Hubs, engagement with the public, and the establishment a summer school, integrating students directly into labs working on various fields related to diverse intelligences. 

Human intelligence is at the heart of our species’ ability to flourish within the world and to express wonder at its complexity. Scholars have long been fascinated by the unique complexity of human intelligence. Driven by this fascination, our conception of intelligence has become anthropocentric and even culturally specific. However, for a sustainable future, it is crucial for us to understand human intelligence within the context of the diversity of life on our planet, rather than as something special and apart from it. 

The Global Research Centre for Diverse Intelligences (GRCDI) at the University of St Andrews was founded in 2023 by Professor Josep Call and Professor Amanda Seed. It aims to unite human and non-human, natural and artificial, individual and collective intelligence, to substantially advance and disseminate understanding of Diverse Intelligences. 

Through animal cognition, machine learning, cognitive robotics, computational neuroscience, behavioural genetics, philosophy of mind and astrophysics, research from the GRCDI connects technological, natural and social sciences and the humanities.   

 Professor Josep Call, the Centre’ Co-Director, said: “Our centre brings together local talent and global partners in a truly interdisciplinary endeavour to unravel the nature of Diverse Intelligences.”