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The Vitalik Buterin PhD Fellowship in AI Existential Safety funds doctoral students who intend to work on technical AI existential safety, a research area that frequently falls outside what departmental funding will support.
It is administered by the Future of Life Institute in partnership with the Beneficial AI Foundation and covers tuition and fees for up to five years, a 40,000 dollar annual stipend at US, UK and Canadian universities, and a 10,000 dollar annual research fund for travel and compute.
The 2026 round closed on 21 November 2025, and FLI has stated it will not run a Fellowships round in the autumn of 2026 while it pauses to reassess the program's direction - so the next open window is genuinely uncertain and prospective applicants should be on the FLI newsletter rather than waiting on a predictable annual cycle.
Two categories are eligible: incoming PhD students who plan to focus on AI existential safety, and current PhD students who lack funding for that focus. The scope is deliberately narrow and the narrowness is the point.
FLI funds research analysing the most probable routes by which AI technology could cause an existential catastrophe, and technical work on interpretability, AI system objectives, cybersecurity threats to AI systems, formalism development and benchmark creation that bears on those routes.
Work on non-existential risks, or on general AI capability improvement, is explicitly out of scope unless the tie to existential risk reduction is direct. Applicants who frame a generic safety or fairness project for this call are misreading the brief.
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Or search similar grants →According to the current listing, eligibility includes: Open to PhD students at universities in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and elsewhere who plan to conduct research on technical AI existential safety. Two groups qualify: students applying to or entering a PhD program who intend to focus on AI existential safety, and current PhD students who lack funding to pursue that focus. Shortlisted candidates receive application fee reimbursement for up to five programs. Awards cover tuition and fees for up to five years of study, a 40,000 dollar annual stipend at US, UK and Canadian institutions, and a 10,000 dollar annual research fund. All fellows must agree to a donation covenant under which accepting a position at certain AI companies within two years of completing the fellowship obliges the fellow to donate half their gross compensation to an agreed charity - applicants should read this term in full before applying. Research must address existential risk from AI specifically; proposals on non-existential AI risks or on general AI capability advancement are out of scope unless the link to existential risk reduction is explicit. The most recent deadline was 21 November 2025 and FLI has announced it will not accept Fellowship applications in the autumn of 2026 while reassessing the program, so verify status directly with grants@futureoflife.org before planning around this scheme. Confirm the full requirements in the official notice before applying.
The current listing shows the fellowship pays a 40,000 dollar annual stipend at universities in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, plus a 10,000 dollar annual research fund for travel and computing, and covers tuition and fees for up to five years of PhD study. amount_min of 50,000 reflects the annual cash package of stipend plus research fund, and amount_max of 250,000 reflects that package sustained across the full five-year term; tuition and fees sit on top of both figures and at a private US university can easily exceed the stipend itself, so the true value of a full award is frequently north of 400,000 dollars. Shortlisted candidates also have application fees reimbursed for up to five programs. The condition that changes the calculation, and the one applicants must read before accepting, is the donation covenant: fellows who take a position at certain AI companies within two years of completing the fellowship agree to donate half their gross compensation to an agreed charity. That is a real and enforceable constraint on post-PhD optionality, not boilerplate, and it should be weighed against the fact that this is one of very few funding sources that will pay for existential-safety work a conventional department will not. Verify award ceilings, matching requirements, and allowable costs in the official notice.
The published deadline was November 22, 2025, which has passed. Check the official notice for any future application windows before investing time in a proposal.
Future of Life Institute Vitalik Buterin PhD Fellowship in AI Existential Safety is funded by Future of Life Institute, in partnership with the Beneficial AI Foundation. Verify program details on the funder's official page before applying.
Start from the official opportunity page linked in this listing — it carries the sponsor's submission instructions.
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