Sign language AI to focus on real Deaf conversations, not just interpreter data
A £3.5 million UK-Japan research project will transform sign language AI by ensuring training is on real conversations between Deaf people, not interpreted signing.
The five-year collaboration, led by the University of Surrey's Professor Richard Bowden, aims to develop human-centred artificial intelligence and augmented reality systems for real-time translation across British Sign Language, Japanese Sign Language, English and Japanese.
Understanding Multilingual Communication Spaces (UMCS) will focus on natural conversational Deaf data. The research team will capture how people really communicate through turn-taking, backchannels, repair strategies and shared visual attention.
UMCS's international team of Deaf and hearing researchers includes:
- Professor Richard Bowden (University of Surrey, UK) – Principal Investigator (AI and computer vision)
- Professor Annelies Kusters (Heriot-Watt University) – Sociolinguistics and Deaf communication
- Dr Robert Adam (Heriot-Watt University) – Comparative sign linguistics and interpreter studies
- Professor Mathini Sellathurai (Heriot-Watt University) – Augmented and virtual reality systems
- Professor Kearsy Cormier (University College London, DCAL) – Sign linguistics and corpus research
- Professor Mayumi Bono (National Institute of Informatics, Japan) – Japanese Sign Language linguistics
- Professor Yutaka Osugi (Tsukuba University of Technology) – Deaf Studies and sign language education
- Professor Hideki Nakayama (University of Tokyo) – Generative AI and multimodal language modelling
- Professor Koji Inoue (Kyoto University) – Human–robot and conversational interaction
Industrial partners for the project include a University of Surrey start-up, Signapse Ltd (UK), and NHK Enterprises (Japan) – both will contribute expertise in translation technologies and sign avatar systems to support real-world deployment.
Sign language corpora have been built to capture natural Deaf-to-Deaf interaction, yet they remain largely unused in AI research because today’s AI systems demand large-scale, text-linked data. As the field moves from “corpus to dataset,” researchers are calling for an inclusive science that bridges linguistics and AI while centring on the lived realities and linguistic intuitions of Deaf signers.Professor Mayumi Bono, from the National Institute of Informatics, Japan
The project is jointly funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). UMCS is part of the Japan–UK Joint Call for Collaborations in Advancing Human-Centred AI.
The total combined investment from both funders is approximately £3.5 million (¥700 million), supporting researcher exchanges, data collection, AI model development and community co-design from 2026 to 2031.
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Note to editors
- BSL Translations of the press release are available here (short version) and here (long version).
Professor Bowden is available for interview; please contact mediarelations@surrey.ac.uk to arrange.
About the Surrey Institute for People-Centred AI (PAI)
Taking a different approach to much AI activity in the UK, the Surrey Institute for People-Centred AI puts the needs of individuals and society at the very heart of everything it does: we believe that the starting point for AI should be people rather than technology.
This people-centred approach drives our research and enables us to design AI technologies and systems that are ethical, responsible, and inclusive. The pan-University Institute brings together Surrey's core AI-related expertise in vision, speech and signal processing, computer science, and mathematics, with its domain expertise across engineering and physical sciences, human and animal health, law and regulation, business, finance and the arts and social sciences. With this distinctive approach, PAI builds on Surrey's track record of collaboration with industry, the public sector, government and other relevant institutions to develop solutions to shared challenges.
To find more details, visit surrey.ac.uk/ai or follow @peoplecentredai
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