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The Vitalik Buterin Postdoctoral Fellowship in AI Existential Safety supports postdoctoral researchers working on the technical problem of preventing AI-caused existential catastrophe. The award is 80,000 dollars in annual stipend at US, UK and Canadian universities plus a 10,000 dollar annual research fund, and the most recent round closed on 5 January 2026.
FLI has since announced it will not accept Fellowship applications in the autumn of 2026 while it pauses to reassess the program, so the next cycle is not on a predictable schedule and interested researchers should contact grants@futureoflife. org or subscribe to the FLI newsletter rather than waiting for an annual call.
Scope is narrow by design: FLI funds analysis of the most probable pathways by which AI technology could cause an existential catastrophe, together with technical work on interpretability, the specification of AI system objectives, formalism development, cybersecurity integrity of AI systems, and benchmark creation, each judged on whether it bears on existential risk.
Research aimed at non-existential harms, or at improving general AI competence, is explicitly excluded unless the tie to existential risk reduction is direct and argued.
The practical read is that this scheme exists to fund a specific, unfashionable research agenda that mainstream postdoctoral funding will not support, and that the stipend is set above standard academic postdoc rates precisely because the competing offer is a frontier lab.
Candidates must also accept the donation covenant governing subsequent employment at certain AI companies, which materially constrains the two years after the fellowship ends.
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Or search similar grants →According to the current listing, eligibility includes: Open to postdoctoral researchers who plan to conduct research on AI existential safety at a host university, with the published stipend figure applying at institutions in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. Applicants must identify research addressing existential risk from advanced AI; eligible directions include interpretability, specification of AI system objectives, formalism and theory development, cybersecurity integrity of AI systems, and the creation of safety benchmarks. Work targeting non-existential risks or general improvements in AI competence is out of scope unless the connection to existential risk reduction is direct. All fellows must acknowledge and accept FLI's donation covenant: accepting a position at certain AI companies within two years of completing the fellowship requires donating half of gross compensation to an agreed charity. The award is 80,000 dollars of annual stipend plus a 10,000 dollar annual research fund. The most recent application deadline was 5 January 2026 and the program is currently closed; FLI has confirmed no Fellowship applications will be accepted in autumn 2026 pending a review of the program, so confirm the status of any future round with grants@futureoflife.org before building plans around it. Confirm the full requirements in the official notice before applying.
The current listing shows the postdoctoral fellowship pays an 80,000 dollar annual stipend at universities in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada plus a 10,000 dollar annual research fund, for a total annual award of 90,000 dollars; amount_min and amount_max are both set to 90,000 because that is the per-year figure FLI publishes and the only amount stated without ambiguity. Multi-year continuation is possible but the published terms describe the award on an annual basis, so applicants should treat 90,000 dollars as the unit and confirm renewal terms directly rather than assuming a three-year package. At 80,000 dollars the stipend sits materially above a typical NIH or NSF postdoctoral scale, which is the deliberate mechanism by which FLI competes for people who would otherwise take a frontier-lab research role. The offsetting term is the same donation covenant that applies to the PhD fellowship: a fellow who accepts a position at certain AI companies within two years of completing the fellowship agrees to donate half their gross compensation to an agreed charity. For a postdoc, who is typically two years from exactly that decision, this is a far more binding constraint than it is for a first-year PhD student, and it is the single most important line in the terms. Verify award ceilings, matching requirements, and allowable costs in the official notice.
The published deadline was January 6, 2026, which has passed. Check the official notice for any future application windows before investing time in a proposal.
Future of Life Institute Vitalik Buterin Postdoctoral 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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