Applications Open for all of our programs!

Apply by 11.59pm, Friday 24th October.

What is the Project Based Fellowship?


The Project-Based Fellowship is EA Cambridge's main introductory program, designed for students looking to explore some of the world's most pressing problems and learn a framework for making a difference.

Over five weeks, you will engage with key ideas in weekly discussions (with free food!) and, in week six, apply what you've learned by working on a research project of your choice. You can choose from a wide range of hand-picked questions or propose your own. The fellowship culminates in a "Celebration Social," where you will present your project (as a poster or a short presentation) and connect with mentors and the wider Cambridge EA community.

This form is to apply to 1 (or more) of the 4  programmes that we're looking to run in Michaelmas 2025.

If you have any questions at all, check out our FAQ section or reach out to me (Jian Xin) at jianxin@eacambridge.org

More details:

This fellowship is structured to take you from a broad interest in doing good to producing a concrete piece of work that can open doors. Here’s the step-by-step journey:

  • Weeks 1-4: Explore the Landscape. You'll start by diving into the foundational ideas of effective altruism. Through weekly discussions (with free food!), you'll engage with critical frameworks for comparing different global problems. The goal is to equip you with the tools to identify a high-impact cause area that truly resonates with your skills, interests, and values.

  • Weeks 5-8: Launch Your Research. This is where you apply theory to practice. You'll receive dedicated one-on-one mentorship to help you scope and tackle a specific research question in your chosen area. You'll move beyond the readings and produce a tangible output: a professional research poster that summarises your unique findings and insights.

  • Start of Lent Term: Showcase Your Work & Connect with Leaders. Your project culminates at our exclusive Lent Term Poster Conference. Here, you will present your research directly to professionals from impactful organisations who are actively seeking talented students. This is your opportunity to:

    • Receive direct career advice and feedback.

    • Network with researchers and potential employers.

    • Be flagged for future internship and job opportunities.

  • Lent Term & Beyond: Compete for the Prize. Your poster also serves as your entry ticket to the Cambridge High Impact Research Project. You can form a team to further develop your research and compete to win a £2,000 prize, turning your initial exploration into a prestigious, prize-winning project.

Application Deadline: Friday October 24th, 2025

What is the GHD working group?

Global Health and Development (GHD) focuses on improving the wellbeing of people worldwide through disease prevention and treatment, poverty alleviation, and life-saving interventions. This working group offers a unique opportunity to lead and shape impactful discussions on global health and development with like-minded, motivated students.

What you’ll be learning about

By participating in this working group, you'll gain a deeper understanding of:

  • The scale and tractability of global health and development issues

  • Cost-effective interventions with proven track records

  • Career paths and opportunities in this field

  • Ethical considerations and challenges in global health and development

Weekly Topics:

  1. Global health, poverty, and economic inequality problem overview

  2. Developmental policy and measuring outcomes of interventions

  3. Career planning, including 1-on-1 sessions with facilitators

  4. Ethics and challenges in global health and development work

  5. Case-Studies of Global Health Inequalities and Poverty, with presentation opportunity

Participants are invited to consider an optional capstone project to be completed during the working group period.

Logistics:

  • Start date: Week commencing 27th October

  • Format: In-person sessions, 1on1 career planning calls

  • Time commitment: Weekly 2-hour sessions for 5 consecutive weeks, with optional time to go into more detail on readings and career exploration at home

Feel free to contact jianxin@eacambridge.org if you have any questions!

Who is it aimed at?

The fellowship is open to students at all stages of university education as well as non-students based in Cambridge. It’s designed for people motivated by working in Global Health and Development, ultimately aiming at having a greater positive impact on the world. We would love to see people from a wide range of backgrounds apply!

What are the requirements?

The fellowship runs for 5 weeks. To take part, you should be

  • Committed to attending all 5 sessions (unless unforeseen circumstances arise)

  • Excited about making a positive impact

  • Open to changing your mind

FAQs

I’ll have difficulty writing a written application!

Applications close midnight, Friday 24th October.
We offer two ways to complete your application:

  • Option 1: Written Application Complete all sections of this form that marked * as required.

    Option 2: Video Interview If you prefer to discuss your application verbally:

  • Book a 30-minute slot here

  • Complete Section 1 of this form

  • Write "Doing interview instead" in Section 2 answers

  • Submit the form

Note: Interview slots must be before October 24.

We recognise that written applications don't showcase everyone's strengths equally, particularly for those with executive function differences (ADHD, ASD) or learning disabilities (dyslexia). The interview option is available for anyone who prefers it.

We strongly encourage applications from students of all backgrounds - we value diverse perspectives across gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, academic discipline, and degree level. No prior EA knowledge is required. Evidence suggests many people underestimate their abilities; if you're interested but unsure, please apply.

Please don't use AI in any way in your application (even if it's just to clear up your language). We're far more interested in your original thoughts rather than your polish
Of course. Here are some frequently asked questions that you could include on your website. I've based these on the information in the documents you've provided, anticipating what potential applicants might want to know.

About the Fellowship

  • What is the Project-Based Fellowship?
    The fellowship is an introduction to the core ideas of effective altruism. It's a 5-week program where you'll learn about the principles of doing the most good, discuss these ideas with a small group of peers, and apply what you've learned to a research project on a topic that interests you.

  • Who is this fellowship for?
    This program is designed for anyone at the University of Cambridge (undergraduates and postgraduates) who is curious about effective altruism and wants to explore how they can make a significant positive impact on the world. No prior knowledge is required.

  • What will I get out of this fellowship?
    You will gain a solid understanding of the principles of effective altruism, develop your research and presentation skills, and connect with a community of like-minded students and mentors. For many, this fellowship serves as the first step into the wider effective altruism community at Cambridge and beyond.

Application and Logistics

  • Is there an application process?
    Yes, there is a short application form to ensure we can create balanced and engaged discussion groups.

  • When does the fellowship take place?
    The fellowship runs for six weeks during Michaelmas term, starting the week of Monday October 27th, 2025.

  • Where are the weekly sessions held?
    Sessions are held in person. We use bookable rooms across the university and also have access to the Meridian office, especially for evening and weekend sessions. Your facilitator will confirm the specific location for your group.

Structure and Time Commitment

  • What is the weekly time commitment?
    The total time commitment is approximately 2.5 hours per week. This includes:

    • ~45 minutes of reading or watching prepared materials.

    • A 1.5-hour in-person discussion session.

    • 30 minutes of coworking on your project in your own time or at our weekly coworking sessions

  • What does a typical weekly session look like?
    Each 1.5-hour session is led by a facilitator and will involve a discussion of the week's topic, followed by dedicated time to work on your project and get feedback from your facilitator and peers.

  • In the first 2 weeks after Michaelmas term, we encourage you to spend time polishing your project! We expect this to take up to 10 hours per week for 2 weeks.

The Project

  • What is the project component of the fellowship?
    The project is a chance for you to delve deeper into a topic related to effective altruism that you find particularly interesting. You will work on this throughout the fellowship and present your findings at the end.

  • Do I have to come up with my own project idea?
    Not at all. We provide a list of pre-approved research questions covering a wide range of topics. However, you are also welcome to propose your own question, subject to approval from your facilitator.

  • What is the final output of the project?
    You will present your project as either an A3 academic poster or a 3 minute presentation at our end-of-fellowship "Celebration Social."

After the Fellowship

  • What happens after the fellowship?
    The fellowship is the main starting point for getting involved with EA Cambridge. At the end of the program, you will be connected with mentors and have a clear understanding of the next steps available to you, including more advanced programs, research opportunities, and career development support. The most engaged graduates may be invited to join our selective research program in the Lent term.

If you have any more questions, please contact jianxin@eacambridge.org.

  • Week 1: The Effectiveness Mindset

    If you want to use your time or money to help others, you probably want to help as many people as you can. But you only have so much time to help, so you can have a much bigger impact if you focus on the interventions that help more people rather than fewer.

    But finding such interventions is incredibly difficult: it requires a "scout mindset" - seeking the truth, rather than to defend our current ideas.

  • Week 2: Differences in Impact

    Around 700 million people still live in poverty, mostly in low-income countries. Efforts to help them - by policy reform, cash transfers, or provision of health services - can be incredibly effective.

    Alongside investigating this issue, we also discuss how much more effective some interventions are than others, and we introduce a simple tool for estimating important figures.

  • Week 3: Radical Empathy

    Should we care about non-human animals? We'll show how it can be important to care impartially, rather than ignoring weird topics or unusual beneficiaries.

    We'll also cover expected value theory (which helps when we're uncertain about the impact of an intervention), and give some ideas for how we could improve the lives of animals that suffer in factory farms.

  • Week 4: What could the future hold? And why care?

    "Longtermism" is the view that improving the long term future is a key moral priority of our time. This can bolster arguments for working on reducing some of the extinction risks that we covered in the last section.

    We’ll also explore some views on what our future could look like, and why it might be pretty different from the present. And we'll introduce forecasting: a set of methods for improving and learning from our attempts to predict the future.

  • Week 5: Smarter than Us

    Transformative artificial intelligence may well be developed this century. If it is, it may begin to make many significant decisions for us, and rapidly accelerate changes like economic growth. Are we set up to deal with this new technology safely?

    As we try to think about these and other difficult questions, how should we update our views? Bayes' rule is a theory designed just for this: it can help us to think more clearly about how to think clearly.

  • Week 6: Coworking

    Over the last 5 weeks, you’ll have received support to choose and scope a research project. This week we get you into a great position to finish your project over the first two weeks of Christmas break.

    If relevant, we’ll help you pair with a subject mentor, and your project can be used to submit an application for our upcoming £2000 research competition!

Apply by 11.59pm, Saturday 24th October.

Apply here for our Michaelmas 2025 Fellowship!