The IAPS AI Policy Fellowship is a fully funded three-month program for professionals seeking to strengthen practical policy skills and contribute to impactful projects in AI governance and policy. The Summer 2026 cohort runs from June to August 2026 with options to participate in Washington DC or remotely. The program begins with a two-week in-person residency in Washington DC followed by remote or in-person work with weekly mentorship and career development support. Fellows work full-time on independent AI policy projects covering areas such as AI regulation compute governance international AI agreements AI safety policy AI workforce impacts and responsible AI deployment. The fellowship received 240 applications for the 2026 cohort representing a 35 percent increase over 2025. IAPS is a remote-first organization and legally supports fellows in many countries. This fellowship is distinct from the Vista Institute for AI Policy Fellowship which focuses specifically on AI law and from the Cooperative AI Foundation fellowships which focus on multi-agent cooperation problems.

The Pivotal Research Fellowship is a nine-week AI safety research program (June 29 to August 28, 2026) based at the London Initiative for Safe AI (LISA), with optional extensions of up to six months for strong projects. Fellows receive a GBP 6,000-8,000 stipend, GBP 2,000 housing allowance for non-London residents, London travel coverage, compute resources, and weekday meals. The program offers weekly one-on-one mentorship with established AI safety researchers, dedicated in-person workspace at LISA, research management support, workshops, and speaker sessions. The selection process involves a written application, video interview, mentor-specific work task, and personal interview. Pivotal Research reports that 70 to 90 percent of fellows who applied received extensions in recent cohorts, indicating strong support for continued research development. The fellowship accepts researchers from diverse backgrounds including ML, philosophy, policy, physics, and biology.

The Water Research Foundation (WRF) RFP 5394 seeks research proposals evaluating the scalability, reproducibility, and impact of Generative AI (GenAI) and Agentic AI applications in the water and wastewater sector. The initiative aims to overcome barriers to AI adoption in utilities, establish guardrails for secure AI model development and cybersecurity integration, pilot GenAI applications with measurable insights and documented impacts, and catalogue existing Agentic AI uses while reproducing low-effort applications at other utilities to promote wider adoption. The research will establish cybersecurity and risk management frameworks for safe AI adoption in water infrastructure. Proposals are assessed based on innovation, feasibility, reproducibility, and potential sector-wide impact. This represents one of the first major funding calls specifically targeting generative and agentic AI applications in critical water infrastructure.

The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation Data Practice Accelerator provides grants of up to $125,000 to nonprofits with complex datasets that are ready to deepen their data practice and build toward AI readiness. This program is distinct from the foundation's larger AI Fluency and Capacity Building grants ($100K-$750K) and focuses specifically on helping organizations develop the data infrastructure, skills, and practices needed to responsibly adopt AI tools. The accelerator supports organizations across the foundation's priority areas including climate action, health equity, economic solidarity, human rights, and crisis response. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis with a current deadline of July 1, 2026. The McGovern Foundation, with $1.6+ billion in assets and $75.8 million in FY2025 charitable spend, is one of the largest private funders of AI-for-good initiatives globally.

The Climate Change AI Innovation Grants program supports projects that address research and deployment challenges in climate change mitigation, adaptation, and climate science by leveraging AI and machine learning, while also creating publicly available datasets and tools to catalyze further work. The program enables key partnerships that accelerate the research-to-deployment cycle, creating synergies between academic researchers, nonprofits, startups and other companies, and governmental or intergovernmental organizations. Funded by the Quadrature Climate Foundation, Schmidt Futures, and Google DeepMind, with Future Earth serving as fiscal sponsor, this is one of the few dedicated grant programs specifically targeting the intersection of AI/ML and climate change. Projects typically involve climate modeling, weather prediction, emissions monitoring, energy optimization, biodiversity monitoring, and other environmental applications of machine learning. The 2026 competition opens with a full proposal deadline of September 15, 2026. The program has grown steadily since its inception, funding 23 projects to date across diverse climate domains and geographies.

The Climate Change AI Innovation Grants program supports catalytic projects using AI and machine learning for climate action, funding research and deployment challenges in climate change mitigation, adaptation, and climate science. Projects must create publicly available datasets and tools as digital public goods, and release open-source code. The program builds partnerships between academic researchers, non-profits, startups, companies, and governmental organizations to accelerate the research-to-deployment cycle. Past funded projects span climate modeling, emissions monitoring, renewable energy optimization, and disaster prediction across all continents.

CIFAR and the Canadian AI Safety Institute fund Catalyst Project proposals addressing sociotechnical considerations in AI safety. The program supports interdisciplinary research in machine learning applications to science and society, with recent funded projects spanning misinformation combat, trustworthy language models, democratic alignment of AI systems, Indigenous AI governance, and real-world safety in autonomous systems. Designed to catalyze new research areas and collaborations at the intersection of social sciences, humanities, and AI safety.

The Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund (EAIF) provides grants for projects that build the effective altruism community and support high-impact cause areas, with AI safety being a primary focus. The fund supports AI safety field-building, community organizing, research infrastructure, educational programs, career development initiatives, and organizational capacity building in the AI safety ecosystem. EAIF complements the Long-Term Future Fund (which focuses on direct AI safety research) by funding the infrastructure and community that enables safety research to happen. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis with decisions typically made within 4-8 weeks.

The Vista Institute AI Policy Fellowship supports students and recent graduates in conducting independent research or serving as research assistants with law professors and AI policy experts. Fellows work on critical AI governance, AI law, and AI policy questions. Most fellows are selected through Vista's courses and the AI Law and Policy Workshop, though unsolicited proposals are occasionally funded. The program provides mentored research opportunities at the intersection of AI technology and public policy, helping develop the next generation of AI governance professionals.

The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation AI Fluency and Capacity Building Grants provide $100,000 to $750,000 in financial and technical support to help nonprofits and public institutions build AI literacy and responsibly deploy emerging technology for social good. This is a core pillar of the McGovern Foundation's grantmaking, distinct from its MIT Solve AI for Humanity Prize. The foundation has $1.6+ billion in assets and supports 144+ organizations across 11+ countries. Recent funded initiatives include AI literacy curriculum development, capacity building programs for nonprofits and public institutions, responsible AI deployment across sectors, regional AI cohorts and training programs, and AI tools for climate resilience, health equity, journalism, civil rights, and crisis response. The foundation's FY2025 commitment of $75.8 million supported work in 13 countries. Note that the McGovern Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals — organizations must be invited to apply based on alignment with the foundation's strategic focus areas. The most effective path to consideration is building visibility through published research, speaking engagements, and partnerships with organizations already in the foundation's network.