MATS Summer 2026

The Summer 2026 program will run from June through August. It will be largest MATS program to date with 120 fellows and 100 mentors. Fellows will be connected with mentors or organizational research groups, such as Anthropic's Alignment Science team, UK AISIRedwood ResearchARC, and LawZero, to collaborate on a research project over the summer. Some fellows will be offered a 6+ month extension to continue this collaboration.

Applications are now open. Apply by June 7th.

Program phases

Key dates for the application and admissions timeline

1. Applications

General Application (May 12th to June 7th) 

Applicants fill out a general application to individual tracks which should take 1-2 hours. Applications are due by June 7th EOD AOE.

Additional Evaluations (June 7th to late July)

After an initial evaluation, applicants will apply to individual streams listed below. Additionally, applicants undergo a variety of track specific evaluations including coding tests, writing reviews, work tests, and interviews. Which evaluations you will undergo depend on the tracks, streams and mentors you apply to.

Admissions Decisions (Late July to early August)
Selected applicants are notified of their acceptance and anticipated mentor later in the application cycle.

Summer 2026 Timeline:

2. Main Program
3. Extension Phase
4. Post-program

Summer 2026 Streams

In stage one, you apply to one or more tracks (broad research areas): Empirical, Theory, Strategy & Forecasting, Policy & Governance, System Security, Biosecurity, and Founding & Field-Building. In stage two, advancing applicants choose specific streams within those tracks, each led by one or more mentors with their own research agenda. You can view this list as a grid here.

Additional streams will be added over the course of May.

Conceptual research on deceptive alignment, designing scheming propensity evaluations and honeypots. The stream will run in person in London, with scholars working together in team(s). 

Read more
Mentorship structure
Desired fellow characteristics
Project selection process

Community at MATS

MATS Research phase provides scholars with a community of peers.

Scholars work out of a shared office and are supported by the Community Team.

MATS alumni report that the connections with peers that they made during MATS have had the largest impact on them years later. Our full-time Community Team works to facilitate these connections and also provide general well-being support. Weekly lightning talks, scholar-led discussion groups, game nights, and outings to SF are some examples of MATS events.