We are pleased to share that Assistant Professor Soujanya Poria’s research proposal, named “Towards Responsible and Safer Foundational Models and Evaluating them on Large-scale Safety and Standard Benchmarks”, is among the few selected for the Accelerate Foundation Models Academic Research Programme by Microsoft. Only top academic research groups from all over the world qualify for this selection. As part of this project, Microsoft will be working with Soujanya’s DeCLaRe Lab (https://declare-lab.net/) and exchanging perspectives on Foundational Models. Microsoft has pledged to make in-kind contributions to DeCLaRe by offering access to their OpenAI tools, such as ChatGPT and GPT4, through the Azure platform. This collaboration will empower DeCLaRe to utilize the advanced capabilities of these powerful AI tools to enhance their research and drive innovation.