The Fellowship

A 3-month interdisciplinary fellowship with mentors from AI safety

Applications for this year have closed!

About the fellowship

  • The PIBBSS summer research fellowship is designed for researchers studying complex and intelligent behavior in natural and social systems who are motivated by the mission of making AI systems safe and beneficial.

  • The next fellowship is due to take place between early June and early September 2024.

  • During the program, fellows work on selected projects at the intersection between their field of expertise and AI safety and/or governance. Fellows will work in close collaboration with a mentor who will help them effectively navigate the domain interface.

  • Fellows will work from a shared office space in London for the duration of the fellowship, together with other researchers in AI safety and governance.

  • Throughout the summer, fellows will benefit from a diverse program consisting of regular talks by external speakers, social events, and personal support sessions with program facilitators. We thrive to create an engaging, educational, fun and supportive research environment.

  • Fellows and selected guests working in AI safety meet at a multi-day, in-person opening retreat to meet the cohort and learn about AI safety, complex systems, epistemic challenges of interdisciplinary work, and more.

  • Fellows receive a stipend of 3,000 USD/month and are expected to work full-time on their projects over the course of the fellowship, though in rare cases, exceptions may be possible.

  • We provide various other sources of operational and fiscal support, e.g. we cover lunch, dinner and snacks at the office, provide fellows’ fellowship related travel costs as well as an additional 1,000 USD/month allowance towards accommodation costs where applicable. We provide invitation letters and documents for visas fellows may require from us.

  • The program is centrally aimed at Ph.D. or Postdoctoral researchers, however, we encourage interested individuals with substantial prior research experience in their field of expertise to apply regardless of their credentials.

We ran iterations of the same program in 2022 and 2023. You can meet our alumni here, and learn more about their research by checking out talks from the PIBBSS summer symposium.

A lot of past fellows went on to continue work in AI safety, among others at places like OpenAI, Anthropic, ACS, AI Objectives Institute, APART research, various positions within academia, or as research affiliates at PIBBSS.

How applications worked:

Deadline:  23:59 GMT 6th of February, 2024

Application materials:

  1. CV/résumé

  2. Personal statement : A 600-800 word statement discussing a) your research background and interests, and b) why you are motivated to participate in the fellowship.

  3. Past work (optional) : We are interested in examples representative of your research interests, expertise, and/or scientific writing style.

You don’t need to have a specific project in mind when applying for the fellowship. Throughout the interview process, we learn more about each fellow’s interests and help them find a suitable mentor and project.

If you need an early response, please let us know in the application form by which date you need it. We will do our best to accommodate your requests. Otherwise, you can expect the final response by the end of March.

Application process overview

Submit your CV, personal statement, and past work here.

The application deadline is TBD.

Successful applicants will be invited to stage two within approximately one week after the application deadline.

For the second stage, you will receive work tasks that you will be asked to complete within approximately one week. The trial tasks are meant to engage your research competencies and domain expertise. Expect about 4-6 hours of work in the middle of February. This work will be compensated.

For the final stage of the application, you will be invited to an interview with the PIBBSS team. We are interested in getting to know you, your research interests, and future plans. At this stage, we are also looking to check for mentor-mentee fit to ensure a productive and insightful summer. For the interviews, please leave as much time as possible in the first half of March in order to find a convenient time slot.

We expect to announce final decisions by late March.

If you pass all three stages of the selection process, you will go through mentor matching where you will meet mentors and decide which one could be a good fit for your work, with them doing the same. There is low likelihood of not finding a suitable mentor in the last stage, but approximately 90% of applicants who make it this far find a suitable mentor.

Who can apply?

The fellowship is aimed at scholars motivated to contribute to the positive development of advanced artificially intelligent systems, and with expertise in fields studying complex and intelligent systems, such as:

  • Ecology and evolutionary biology
  • Neuroscience and cognitive science
  • Dynamical systems theory
  • Physics & physics of information
  • Various areas in philosophy

  • Political & economic theory
  • Social & legal theory
  • Linguistics
  • Media Studies
  • and more…

If you are uncertain whether you would be a good fit for the program, contact us.

The program is centrally aimed at Ph.D. or Postdoctoral researchers, however, we encourage interested individuals with substantial prior research experience in their field of expertise to apply regardless of their credentials. The first stage of the application is designed to be easy to complete.

We accept applicants from all countries. 

This Fellowship was organized thanks to grants from SFF, LTFF, CAIF, and The Foresight Institute.