The Cambridge ERA AI Fellowship pays a £10,000 stipend for a 10-week research programme in Cambridge, UK, starting January 18, 2027. Fellows work on technical or governance research addressing risks from advanced AI systems, matched with mentors from organisations including Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Anthropic, and the UK AI Security Institute. There’s no formal eligibility bar beyond being 18 or older — the programme explicitly says it cares more about talent and fit than credentials. Applications close September 13, 2026, 11:59pm anywhere in the world.
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As AI systems grow more capable, the questions of how to keep them safe and how to govern them responsibly have become urgent, fast-moving research problems — and ERA exists to get more people working on them directly, not just studying them from the outside. Fellows spend 10 weeks developing and completing an original research project, working alongside ERA’s research managers and a mentor matched to their specific research direction. Past fellows have gone on to publish at venues like NeurIPS, and the programme draws mentors from a genuinely wide institutional spread — university researchers, government AI safety bodies, and frontier AI labs alike — rather than restricting itself to one type of organisation or one narrow slice of the field.
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Fellowship Summary
| Scholarship Name ⇒ | Cambridge ERA:AI Fellowship — Winter 2027 |
| Host Country ⇒ | United Kingdom (UK) |
| Study Level ⇒ | Fellowships |
| Benefits ⇒ | Fully Funded — a £10,000 stipend, visa support, meal provisions during working hours, and travel expense coverage |
| Funded By ⇒ | Cambridge ERA:AI |
| Eligible Countries ⇒ | All nationalities — no formal eligibility restriction beyond being 18 or older |
| Application Deadline ⇒ | September 13, 2026, 11:59pm |
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The Three Research Streams of the Cambridge ERA AI Fellowship
Before you apply, it’s worth knowing which of these three areas your interests and background actually fit, since your written application and interviews will be evaluated against the specific stream you’re pursuing:
- Technical: Research into evaluations, interpretability, robustness, alignment, and control — work like measuring dangerous capabilities in models, understanding model internals, designing safeguards, and developing ways to keep increasingly autonomous systems under meaningful human oversight.
- Governance: Research into how AI development and deployment should be regulated and coordinated — covering regulatory design, frontier safety frameworks, corporate governance inside AI companies, and international coordination as risks cross national borders.
- Technical AI Governance: A hybrid stream focused on the technical infrastructure governance actually depends on — compute governance, auditing, monitoring, and hardware-enabled verification — essentially building the tools that let governments verify whether AI development claims and commitments are actually being followed.
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Who Can Apply for the Cambridge ERA AI Fellowship
You must be 18 or older. Beyond that, ERA describes itself as talent-first rather than credential-first, and is explicit that there are no formal eligibility restrictions tied to your field of study, career stage, or nationality. The fellowship is especially suited to:
- Researchers at any career stage looking to apply their expertise to AI safety or governance questions, or to work across disciplinary boundaries
- Professionals from technical, policy, security, legal, or economic backgrounds who want to bring existing expertise into frontier AI safety and governance
- People looking to redirect an existing research agenda toward problems created by increasingly capable AI systems
- People with distinctive domain expertise or perspectives that could improve how AI risk is understood and addressed
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This openness matters in practice: your path in doesn’t have to run through a computer science degree specifically, especially if you’re aiming for the Governance or Technical AI Governance streams.
What Fellows Receive
- A stipend of £10,000
- Visa support
- Meal provisions during working hours
- Travel expense coverage
- A dedicated desk space at ERA’s Cambridge office, plus regular social events and community activities
- Dedicated research management support, alongside your matched mentor
- Help developing the skills, expertise, and network needed for an AI safety or policy career, including introductions to relevant organisations
- In select cases, extra financial assistance to support a genuinely impactful career transition
Beyond the 10 Weeks: The Research Scholars Extension
ERA’s top fellows aren’t simply sent off at the end of the 10 weeks. Through the Research Scholars programme, standout fellows can be offered a funded, full-time extension of six months or more to continue their research beyond the fellowship itself. This isn’t guaranteed or automatic, but it’s worth knowing about going in, since it changes how you might think about scoping your project — a research direction with real room to grow past 10 weeks may serve you better than one designed to wrap up neatly by the fellowship’s end.
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The Cambridge ERA AI Fellowship Application Process – Step by Step
- Written application — primarily short essay questions, expected to take about two hours to complete.
- Interview, Round 1 — the top roughly 20% of applicants are invited to a first-round interview in late September.
- Interview, Round 2 — a shorter second interview for the applicants ERA is most excited about. This is also when your references are contacted, so make sure they’re expecting to hear from ERA around early October.
- Offers — successful applicants join the ERA ’27 cohort, where ERA works with you directly to develop your project idea and confirm your mentor match.
Application Deadline
Applications close September 13, 2026 at 11:59pm.
This means you effectively have until the very end of September 13 no matter what time zone you’re applying from. With two interview rounds following the written stage in late September and early October, and a fellowship start date of January 18, 2027, there’s meaningful runway between application and start, but the written stage itself is where most applicants are filtered, so don’t treat the two-hour estimate as a reason to leave it until the last day.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a background in computer science or AI to apply?
No. ERA explicitly welcomes professionals from technical, policy, security, legal, and economic backgrounds, particularly for the Governance and Technical AI Governance streams. A strong fit with one of the three research streams matters more than a specific academic background.
Is this fellowship open to Nigerian or other African applicants?
Yes. There’s no nationality restriction stated anywhere in the eligibility criteria — the only formal requirement is being 18 or older. Visa support is provided as part of the fellowship benefits, which matters directly for applicants who’d need one to travel to Cambridge.
What happens if I’m not selected for the Research Scholars extension?
Nothing negative — the extension is offered only to top-performing fellows and isn’t a default outcome of completing the fellowship. Most fellows complete the standard 10-week programme and move on with the research experience, mentorship, and network connections gained during that time.
How competitive is the interview process?
Only about the top 20% of written applicants advance to a first-round interview, and a further, more selective group is invited to a second round. Given this funnel, a strong written application — clear, specific, and matched to one of the three research streams — matters more than a generic statement of interest in AI safety.
Can I apply if I already have an existing research agenda in a different field?
Yes. ERA specifically welcomes people looking to redirect an existing research agenda toward problems created by increasingly capable AI systems, so a shift in focus rather than a from-scratch pivot is a genuine fit for this fellowship.
Disclaimer: All fellowship details, deadlines, benefits, and eligibility criteria in this post were verified from official sources as of August 2026. Information is subject to change without notice. Always confirm the latest details directly on the official Cambridge ERA:AI website before submitting your application. ScholarWaka is not affiliated with Cambridge ERA:AI.
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