Effective Altruism Switzerland

Stipends, work hours, and retreat costs for four extra students at CHERI’s summer research program.

This grant was for Effective Altruism Switzerland’s new Swiss Existential Risk Initiative (CHERI) to pay for four extra students in their 2021 summer research program. The students were referred by other summer research programs which had run out of capacity; CHERI had told the students that they could accept them, but that it was unclear whether they would be able to provide a research stipend.

FHI’s summer research program was cancelled this year, so it seems plausible to me that there is not enough summer capacity for students who could turn out to be very strong researchers. CHERI is very new, so I am unsure about the quality of their program, but I think some students can learn and get further involved in longtermism just from being given a somewhat structured environment in which to do research. I also think it would be a bad outcome if CHERI accepted some students but didn’t pay them; I think this could create an unhealthy dynamic for the program cohort.