Open Philanthropy Course Development Grants

This program aims to provide grant support to academics for the development of new university courses (including online courses). At present, Open Philanthropy is looking to fund the development of courses on a range of topics related to reducing global catastrophic risks (potential risks from advanced AI, biosecurity and pandemic preparedness, other global catastrophic risks), or to issues that are of cross-cutting relevance to this work.

The purpose of the funding is to assist in the development and execution of the course. Eligible uses of funding include (but are not necessarily limited to):

• Summer salary;
• Teaching buyouts;
• Graduate student assistance;
• Guest speakers (≤ $10,000).

Grant size will vary depending on the career stage of the grantee, but as a rough indication, grant totals for mid-career academics who are applying for grants that cover summer salary/teaching buyouts (potentially along with other costs) are expected to amount to approximately $30,000-50,000.