Benjamin Todd

While lots of research happens in academia, there are also many research positions elsewhere.

For example, many private companies develop crucial technology.

BioNTech is famous for developing the first COVID vaccine, while think tanks often do important research and policy.

Example, Neil was doing an undergraduate degree in maths when he decided that he wanted to work in AI safety.

Our team was able to introduce Neil to researchers in the field and helped him secure internships in academic and industry research groups.

This helped him see AI safety as a concrete career path and that, despite skepticism of long-termism, AI posed a major risk to even people alive today.

Neil didn't feel like he was a great fit for academia.

He hates writing papers.

So he applied to roles in commercial AI research labs.

He's now a research engineer at DeepMind.

He works on mechanistic interpretability research, which he thinks could be used in the future to help identify potentially dangerous AI systems before they can cause harm.

Don't forget supporting positions.

Becoming an academic administrator doesn't sound like a high-impact career, but that's exactly why it is.

Research requires administrators, managers, grantmakers, and communicators to make progress.

Many of these roles require very capable people who understand the research, but because they're not glamorous or highly paid, it can be hard to attract the right people.

For this reason, if a role like this is a good fit for you, then it can be promising.

What ultimately matters is not who does the research, but that it gets done.

A hero of ours is Sean O'Hagarty.

He studied for a PhD in comparative genomics, but ultimately decided to pursue academic project management.

He became a manager at the Future of Humanity Institute, which undertakes neglected research into emerging existential risks, like risks from AI and engineered pandemics.