Biosecurity resources and fellowships for people interested in the field

Compiled with help from Claude, might contain mistakes.

Start here

• BlueDot Impact Biosecurity course
  • Remote; open globally
  • Intensive (~6 days at ~5h/day) or part-time (~6 weeks at ~5h/week)
• 80,000 Hours: Preventing catastrophic pandemics
  • Introduction to the field
• GCBR Organization Updates Newsletter
  • Provides updates of organizations in the biosecurity space
• Biosecurity.world and Biosecurity.map
  • Gives an overview of biosecurity organizations

Fellowships

Research fellowships

• Pivotal Frontier Biodefense Fellowship (FBF)
  • Open to anyone; 9 weeks in-person in London (stipend, travel, and housing covered)
• Existential Risk Alliance (ERA) Artificial Intelligence x Biosecurity (AIxBio) Research Fellowship
  • Open to anyone; 10 weeks in-person in Cambridge, UK; fully funded
• Cambridge Boston Alignment Initiative (CBAI) AIxBiosecurity Research Fellowship
  • Requires US work authorization (J-1 visa sponsorship available for the spring cohort); 10 weeks in-person in Cambridge, Massachusetts; stipend plus housing
• ML Alignment & Theory Scholars (MATS) biosecurity track
  • Open to anyone; ~10 to 12 weeks in-person, mainly in Berkeley (MATS also runs in London), with remote participation possible on a case by case basis depending on your mentor
• Supervised Program for Alignment Research (SPAR)
  • Remote and part-time; open globally
• Transfyr AI Fellowship
  • 1-year, full-time machine learning for science fellowship (not biosecurity-specific but relevant) for graduate students, recent PhDs, and postdocs; in-person in Boston/Cambridge, Massachusetts

Policy fellowships

• Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative (ELBI) Fellowship, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (CHS)
  • Requires a master’s or doctorate, current PhD enrollment, or 3+ years of relevant experience; open internationally except sanctioned countries; part-time (10 months) with travel to events in the Washington, DC area and abroad
• Council on Strategic Risks (CSR) Fellowship for Ending Bioweapons (2025 to 2026 call for reference)
  • Early-career; requires a graduate degree or current PhD enrollment; citizens of NATO countries, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, or South Korea only; part-time with three in-person trips to US cities
• CSR Mid-Career Biodefense Bootcamp Fellowship
  • Mid-career professionals (~10+ years of experience); priority to citizens of NATO and Indo-Pacific partner countries; short virtual course plus a 2.5-day in-person bootcamp in the US (usually Washington, DC)
• Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) | bio Next Generation Biosecurity Delegation to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) (2025 call for reference)
  • Early-career, ages 18 to 35; open globally; travel to Geneva
• United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) Youth for Biosecurity Fellowship
  • Young scientists (under 35) from developing countries; virtual training plus a week in Geneva
• Asia Centre for Health Security (ACHS) Fellowship
  • ASEAN+6 countries only (citizens or people working there 3+ years); ages 25 to 45; requires a graduate degree or 3 years of experience; part-time, no relocation
• Horizon Institute for Public Service: Horizon Fellowship and AI Rapid Response Fellowship
  • US-focused: must relocate to Washington, DC and have existing US work authorization (no visa sponsorship); executive branch placements generally require US citizenship; open from recent graduates to senior leaders; the AI Rapid Response Fellowship requires US citizenship and several years of experience

Other fellowship-style programs

• Renaissance Philanthropy Big if True Science (BiTS) Accelerator: Biosecurity cohort
  • For scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs with an R&D program idea; open globally; part-time (~10h/week) during US working hours, with an in-person kick-off

Online courses

• BlueDot Impact Biosecurity course
  • Remote; open globally
  • Intensive (~6 days at ~5h/day) or part-time (~6 weeks at ~5h/week)

Events

• Global Challenges Project (GCP) workshops
  • Students and professionals worldwide; free 3-day residential workshops on AI and biosecurity risks in the US and UK (e.g. Bay Area, Washington, DC, London)
• Effective Altruism Global (EAG) and EAGx conferences
  • Conferences worldwide for networking with people working on biosecurity and other pressing problems
• Happy hours in different cities
  • e.g. organized by SecureBio or American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Boston and Washington, DC

Hackathons

• Apart Research AIxBio Hackathon (see also all Apart Research sprints)
  • Open globally; remote participation plus in-person hubs

Groups

• Cambridge Biosecurity Hub (CBH)
  • Cambridge, UK-based
• Oxford Biosecurity Group (OBG)
  • Remote, part-time (5 to 10 hours/week) research projects for a range of backgrounds and career stages, any country; next project cycle dates not yet announced
• Zurich Biosecurity Hub
  • Zurich, Switzerland-based; students and professionals; lectures, fellowship program, paper discussions, career guidance, and co-working space
• Southeast Asia Biosecurity (SEA Bio)
  • Newsletter and network for early-career biosecurity researchers in Southeast Asia
• Nordic Biosecurity Group (NBG)
  • Nordic countries; students and professionals; community, resources, and career guidance

Individual-focused efforts

• BlueDot Impact Career Transition Grants and Rapid Grants
  • Open globally (except Russia, China, and India); Career Transition Grants are for people ready to go full-time on a transition to AI or biosecurity work
• Successif biosecurity career advising
  • For mid-career and senior professionals
• 80,000 Hours one-on-one career advising
  • Free 1:1 video calls with career advisors, including on biosecurity
• High Impact Professionals (HIP)
  • Working professionals; free 6-week Impact Accelerator Program plus a Talent Directory connecting job seekers with impact-focused organizations (not biosecurity-specific)

For potential founders

• Halcyon Futures (see Request for Founders)
  • Experienced founders, operators, and leaders
• Voyager Fellowship (BlueDot Impact)
  • Builders; 3-month in-person residency in San Francisco; inaugural cohort focused on biosecurity
• Catalyze Impact
  • Incubator for founders starting AI safety & biosecurity organizations
• BlueDot Impact Missions
  • Concrete projects BlueDot would like someone to take on with their support
• Project Tailwind (Coefficient Giving)
  • Coefficient Giving’s call for founders to launch ambitious initiatives against catastrophic AI risks, built around a list of critical, unsolved problems; expression-of-interest form; AI-focused (biosecurity only where AI-related)
• UK Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) Programme Directors
  • Typically a 3-year role (extendable by 2 years) launching and managing ambitious R&D programmes; London-based (hybrid), must be based in the UK
• Speculative Technologies Brains Accelerator
  • Remote and part-time (~10 hours/week for 4 months) with two in-person events; for people with PhD-level research experience wanting to start and run coordinated research programs (FROs, ARPA-style programs)
• SafeHAUS Residency
  • San Francisco-based residency for founders building technologies to prevent, detect, monitor, and respond to biological threats

Content / Communications / Resources

• Global Catastrophic Biological Risks (GCBR) Updates newsletter
  • Regular updates from organizations working on GCBRs
• Defenses in Depth blog (Coefficient Giving’s biosecurity team; also on Substack)
• 80,000 Hours: podcast, newsletter, biosecurity career review
  • In-depth podcast interviews, a newsletter with job updates, and a career guide to biosecurity work
  • 80,000 Hours job board (filter by “Biosecurity & pandemic preparedness”)
• Reading lists: Emerging Tech Policy Careers biosecurity page and their resources list
  • Emerging Tech Policy Careers is focused on US policy careers
• Newsletters from other organizations: SEA Bio, Nordic Biosecurity Group resources, BlueDot Impact’s biosecurity career resources roundup
  • Regional newsletter, curated reading lists, and career advice
• Biosecurity Hub Slack workspace (ask for an invite)
• AIxBio briefing
  • Quarterly newsletter about AIxBio updates
• Biosecurity.world
  • List of ~all the organizations in biosecurity.
• Biosecurity.map
  • Visualization of ~all biosecurity organizations on a map.

Other

• NTI Next Generation for Biosecurity Competition
  • Annual team paper competition for students and early-career professionals worldwide (teams span 2+ countries)
• International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Responsibility Program (plus their blog)
  • Mainly for iGEM competition teams