Supervised Program for Alignment Research
SPAR is a part-time, remote research fellowship that pairs aspiring AI safety and policy researchers with experienced mentors for 3-month research projects. It is one of the largest AI safety research fellowships by participant count.
SPAR is a part-time, remote research fellowship that pairs aspiring AI safety and policy researchers with experienced mentors for 3-month research projects. It is one of the largest AI safety research fellowships by participant count.
People
Updated 05/18/26Research Fellow
Fellowship
Research Fellow
Research Fellow
RAND Fellow
AI Policy Research Fellow
Research Fellow
AI Safety Research Fellow
Funding Details
Updated 05/18/26- Annual Budget
- -
- Current Runway
- -
- Funding Goal
- -
- Funding Raised to Date
- -
Org Details
Updated 05/18/26SPAR (Supervised Program for Alignment Research) is a part-time, remote research fellowship that matches aspiring AI safety and policy researchers with experienced mentors for structured, 3-month research collaborations. Launched in Spring 2023 through the Berkeley AI Safety Initiative for Students (BASIS), the program was originally co-organized with Stanford AI Safety and Georgia Tech AI Safety. It drew inspiration from similar mentorship initiatives at Stanford AI Alignment and the OxAI Safety Hub. From its university-focused roots, SPAR expanded to accept participants at all career stages — undergraduates, graduate students, and working professionals alike — and grew to become one of the largest AI safety research fellowships in the world. The Fall 2025 round featured over 300 mentees across 55 countries working on 80+ projects, and the Spring 2026 round launched with 130+ projects, described by the organizers as the largest round of any AI safety research fellowship to date. In October 2024, SPAR became a core program of Kairos AI Project, Inc., a newly formed US 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on accelerating the AI safety talent pipeline. Alongside the Pathfinder Fellowship (which supports AI safety university groups globally), SPAR constitutes one of Kairos's two flagship programs. Kairos is co-directed by Agustín Covarrubias and Neav Topaz, with Rebecca Baron as Founding Generalist. Research areas offered through SPAR include technical alignment, interpretability, AI governance and policy, AI security, and biosecurity. The program covers project expenses such as compute, API access, and software. Most projects result in published papers or preprints, and SPAR research has been accepted at top venues including ICML and NeurIPS, and has been covered by TIME. Demo Day events feature prizes totaling $7,000 and direct connections to hiring organizations in the AI safety ecosystem. Kairos is funded by Coefficient Giving, and Open Philanthropy has recommended grants to Kairos in support of its AI safety talent development work.
Theory of Change
Updated 05/18/26SPAR operates on the theory that the AI safety field faces a talent bottleneck: there are many motivated early-career researchers but few structured pathways to develop practical research skills alongside experienced mentors. By connecting hundreds of aspiring researchers with active AI safety professionals each year through concrete 3-month projects, SPAR aims to rapidly grow the pool of skilled AI safety researchers and policy professionals. Successful participants go on to full-time roles at AI safety organizations, publish peer-reviewed work, and deepen the global AI safety research community — thereby increasing the field's capacity to address catastrophic risks from advanced AI.
Grants Received
Updated 05/18/26Projects– no linked projects
Updated 05/18/26Discussion
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts.