CIRSS researchers, in collaboration with colleagues at Cardiff University, have received funding for the project XAI-CA: Explainable AI via Computational Argumentation through the 2024–25 University of Illinois System / Cardiff University Joint Seed Grant program.

The one-year project is co-led by Professor Bertram Ludäscher (Illinois PI) and Professor Martin Caminada (Cardiff PI). The award is part of the Cardiff–DPI Science Teams initiative, jointly administered by the Discovery Partners Institute and Cardiff University. The program provides seed and travel grants to jump-start international collaborations across disciplines, with the goal of fostering innovative, impactful research partnerships between Illinois and Cardiff.

The XAI-CA collaboration brings together leading experts in computational argumentation, symbolic AI, and the theory and practice of provenance, uniting complementary strengths to advance explainable and trustworthy AI. By combining the logical rigor of argumentation frameworks with the natural language capabilities of large language models, the team aims to develop hybrid neurosymbolic approaches to explainable AI. Planned use cases include AI-assisted legal reasoning, research integrity in publishing, and industry decision support.