Cambridge AI Safety Hub — Operating Costs

Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of £298,384 (approximately $589,903 at the time of conversion) to support the Cambridge AI Safety Hub (CAISH), a network of students and professionals in Cambridge, UK, working on AI safety. CAISH will use the funds to host events, programs, fellowships, and retreats, as well as pay for staff salaries and other expenses.

This falls within our focus area of Global Catastrophic Risks Capacity Building.

The grant amount was updated in May 2025. 

Michael Specter — Existential Risk Courses at MIT (2024)

Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $62,000 to Michael Specter to support his work updating and teaching two courses related to existential risk at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

This follows our September 2023 support for teaching the same courses in a previous year.

We sought applications for this funding to support the development of courses on a range of topics that are relevant to certain areas of Open Philanthropy’s grantmaking.

Esade — Course Buyouts

Open Philanthropy recommended a gift of $135,000 to Esade to support course buyouts that will enable Professor Uri Simonsohn to work on the development of AsCollected, a simple protocol for establishing the provenance of data in academic science.

This falls within our focus area of innovation policy.

Longview Philanthropy — General Support (October 2024)

Image courtesy of Longview Philanthropy

Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $15,961,273 to Longview Philanthropy to support its operational costs. Longview Philanthropy provides education, advisory and grantmaking services to donors who want to maximize the impact of their giving.

This follows our December 2023 support and falls within our focus area of Global Catastrophic Risks Capacity Building.

The grant amount was updated in June 2025.

Yale University — Inflammation Control Research

Photo courtesy of Dr. Michael Simons

Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $282,000 to Yale University to support research on preventing dangerous inflammatory responses called “cytokine storms,” which can occur during CAR-T cancer therapy and severe infections like sepsis. Led by Dr. Michael Simons, the research focuses on controlling VISTA, a protein that regulates inflammation in the body.

This falls within our focus area of scientific research.

The grant amount was updated in May 2025.

The Kids Research Institute Australia — Malaria Vaccine Modelling

Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $410,309 to The Kids Research Institute Australia to support modeling efforts aimed at optimizing malaria vaccine development, led by Melissa Penny. This work will evaluate the potential impact of various malaria vaccines and vaccine combinations, focusing on understanding the contribution of different vaccine antigens in specific use cases and target populations. The goal is to identify the most effective and impactful vaccines for development.

This falls within our focus area of global health R&D.

Mission Realization — Support for Farm Animal Welfare Organizations (October 2024)

Open Philanthropy recommended a contract of $820,000 over two years with Mission Realization, led by Neysa Colizzi, to support its focus on strategic, leadership, and organizational development for farm animal welfare organizations.

This follows our July 2022 support and falls within our focus area of farm animal welfare.

This project was supported through a contractor agreement. While we typically do not publish pages for contractor agreements, we occasionally opt to do so.

Sightsavers — Trachoma Treatment Research

Photo courtesy of Sightsavers

Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $879,136 to Sightsavers to support a trial in Ethiopia testing whether adding ivermectin to standard trachoma mass drug administration efforts can improve disease elimination efforts.

This falls within our focus area of global health R&D.