Stanford Existential Risks Initiative
ZviThe Stanford Existential Risks Initiative (SERI) is an interdepartmental collaboration between Stanford faculty and students dedicated to mitigating global catastrophic risks and improving the long-term prospects for human civilization. Housed within the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute, SERI focuses on four key existential risk areas: catastrophic AI accidents and misuse, nuclear war, pandemics and biosecurity threats, and extreme climate change. Its programs include a flagship summer research fellowship pairing students with faculty mentors, annual conferences and symposia, undergraduate courses on preventing human extinction, and the Stanford AI Alignment (SAIA) sub-initiative focused on AI safety research and community building.
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Theory of Change
SERI believes that academic research, education, and cross-disciplinary collaboration at a world-class university can meaningfully reduce existential risks. By embedding existential risk scholarship within Stanford's institutional infrastructure, SERI aims to train the next generation of researchers and policymakers who will work on these problems. Their approach operates through multiple channels: producing high-quality research on cascading and interconnected risks, developing students' careers toward high-impact existential risk work, building faculty engagement across departments, and advocating for longtermist and existential risk perspectives within academia. The summer fellowship program creates a pipeline of researchers with hands-on experience in existential risk mitigation, while courses and events normalize and mainstream the study of global catastrophic risks in university settings.
Grants Received
from Survival and Flourishing Fund
from Survival and Flourishing Fund
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Details
- Last Updated
- Apr 2, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC
- Created
- Mar 18, 2026, 11:18 PM UTC