Currently 7 active ai and ai safety grants, fellowships and residencies open to applicants in Worldwide. Hand-curated and updated weekly. Almost every entry is funded; a few notable unpaid open calls and festival submissions are included as clearly flagged exceptions. Browse the list below, or use the interactive desk for filtering and shortlisting.
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A joint philanthropic funding call by Schmidt Sciences, Google DeepMind, ARIA, the Cooperative AI Foundation and Google.org to catalyse the foundational scientific research needed to understand, evaluate and control risks emerging from large-scale ecosystems of interacting AI agents deployed by multiple actors (multi-principal, multi-agent settings). The call argues that focusing only on the safety and alignment of individual models is insufficient, and seeks system-level approaches. RESEARCH AGENDA (four clusters): (1) Sandboxes and Testbeds, realistic, reproducible multi-agent environments for studying populations of frontier-model agents; (2) The Science of Agent Networks, how collective capabilities emerge and scale, how networks fail, and how dangerous population-level properties can be detected; (3) Strengthening Agent Infrastructure, evaluating and stress-testing primitives such as identity, verifiability, reputation, communication and commitment; (4) Multi-Agent Oversight and Control, detection, attribution, security and intervention methods to keep deployed agent populations safe at scale. Proposals may target one cluster or span several, with priority on depth over breadth and on realistic sandboxes and testbeds. OUT OF SCOPE: single-agent safety, capability advancement without a clear safety motivation, toy systems, naive application of pre-existing solutions, commercial product development, and purely conceptual/policy work. ELIGIBILITY: individual researchers, research teams, research institutions and multi-institution collaborations across universities, national laboratories, institutes and nonprofit research organisations; open globally. Informational webinars on 30 June and 23 July 2026; notification of decisions in autumn 2026. Proposals due 8 August 2026 by 11:59pm Anywhere on Earth. Contact: multiagentsafety@schmidtsciences.org. Apply at https://schmidtsciences.smapply.io/prog/scaling_ai_safety_for_a_multi_agent_world/.
Research Fellows play a central role in GovAI's research: experienced researchers who conduct independent, high-quality work with direct relevance to AI governance and policy while contributing to GovAI's intellectual community. NOTE: applications open at the end of July 2026; GovAI does not publish a fixed closing date, so the 17 August 2026 date shown here is just when this listing is set to expire (check the GovAI page for the live status). Work may take the form of academic publications, policy memos, reports or blog posts, alongside mentoring early-career researchers (such as Summer and Winter Fellows), shaping GovAI's research strategy and convening stakeholders. Fellows work under a Senior Research Fellow or leadership-team member but have substantial autonomy over projects, agendas and publication formats. TOPICS include risk management, threat modeling, economics of AI, geopolitics of AI, public policy and technical governance; candidates working on adjacent topics are also welcome. ELIGIBILITY: open to a wide range of academic and professional backgrounds (computer science, political science, public policy, economics, philosophy, law, plus government/industry/civil-society experience); no strict educational requirement, but the strongest candidates typically have multiple years of relevant research or policy experience and a track record of high-quality, impactful work. A shared application also covers a one-year visiting Research Scholar position for those with less experience (apply once for both). PROCESS: written application; a paid remote work test (some workstreams add a research agenda and a second paid test); then a final stage of two interviews and reference checks. Deep expertise in technical governance, frontier safety design, cybersecurity or US policy is especially welcome. Contact recruitment@governance.ai with location or access questions.
Grain is a cookbook of critical and creative AI literacy exercises for educators across audiovisual and creative practice, co-produced by AIxDESIGN and the Netherlands Film Academy and led by Nadia Piet. The open call collects 'recipes': tried-and-tested group exercises for the classroom or workshop that get people thinking critically and making creatively with AI. Exercises can be hands-on or analog, 15 minutes or a full day, beginner or advanced; the one hard requirement is that someone else can read your recipe and run it themselves. Examples of what might fit: hands-on experiments with specific AI tools (image generators, chatbots, code assistants, video models); analog activities that reveal computational logic through embodied practice; critical readings, watchings, or listenings with structured discussion; provocations, games, or role-plays that get at how AI sees, thinks, or makes; and exercises that help people figure out how they want to relate to AI in their own practice. WHAT YOU GET: your recipe formatted and credited to you in the first edition of Grain, a print copy when it lands, and an invite to the launch. Everything is published under CC BY-SA 4.0 so the work can travel and you keep authorship. FEE: this round offers a need-based fee for freelance and independent practitioners of EUR 150 per recipe; if making the time would be hard without it, email hello@aixdesign.co with your proposal. After this round the call stays open but the fee will not. LIVE SESSION: an optional 30-minute live session on Wednesday 12 August 2026 at 16:00 CEST lets you bring a rough exercise and turn it into a recipe on the spot with the Grain Recipe Converter (online, sign up at luma.com/84w148in). Submissions are open until the end of August 2026; Grain publishes March 2027. Submit via the form; questions to hello@aixdesign.co.
Foresight Institute grants supporting work at the intersection of AI, science and safety, including AI-for-science tools and AI-safety research. ELIGIBILITY: individuals, teams and organisations (for- and non-profit) worldwide; applicants active in the San Francisco or Berlin hubs are prioritised. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis with a cutoff on the last day of each month. Apply via the Foresight Institute grants page.
Effective Altruism Funds' Long-Term Future Fund makes grants to individuals and small groups working to reduce risks from advanced AI and other threats to humanity's long-term future, including technical AI safety and alignment research, field-building and communication. ELIGIBILITY: individuals and small groups; not geographically restricted. Applications accepted on a rolling basis via the EA Funds application form.
Rolling grant programme funding individuals at any career stage who want to pursue careers that could help reduce global catastrophic risks or otherwise improve the long-term future. Especially interested in candidates working on risks from future advances in AI and global catastrophic biological risks. Funds graduate study (master's/PhD/MPP/law school), unpaid internships, postdocs, professional certifications, online courses, independent study/upskilling, career-transition and exploration periods, and academic sabbaticals. Concrete examples Coefficient Giving lists: a senior ML engineer doing six months of independent study to investigate AI risk mitigation careers; a physics PhD doing self-guided ML interpretability work to transition into technical AI safety; a management consultant exploring how to apply their skill set to GCR; a tenured ML/CS professor taking a one-year sabbatical to contribute to AI safety or governance. Open globally; no institutional affiliation required. Looks for candidates whose funding would 'make a difference' (otherwise unable to find sufficient funding, or existing funding has restrictions). Encourages applications from women and people of color. Now subsumes the former Biosecurity Scholarship. Applications are open until further notice and assessed on a rolling basis. Free to apply.
Lightweight rolling grant for individual journalists worldwide (writers, photographers, radio, film; freelance or staff) examining how AI systems are designed, sold and deployed in communities. Faster turnaround than the Pulitzer AI Accountability Fellowship: decisions in 1 to 2 weeks.