I am very happy to announce our new AI safety research support program: Apart Lab Studio.

This new program is designed to bridge the gap between weekend hackathon projects and a fully-fledged AI Safety research career. Helping participants to realize the impact of their hackathon work for their own career as well as for the wider world.

This innovative 8-week program offers promising researchers worldwide the opportunity to develop their ideas and test their research fit, regardless of their current location or employment status. It is especially for those who want to explore their ideas and potential fit for research:

• While polishing your hackathon work, and ideating on impactful research directions, participants will learn from experienced colleagues in AI safety.
• As a member of Apart Lab, they will have access to our resources and be part of our global community.
• If the participant’s work here is a great fit for our fellowship - which offers a deeper dive into your topic - you may be invited to our Apart Lab Fellowship program at the culmination.

Why Apart Lab Studio?

The AI safety field moves quickly, and timing is crucial. We’ve seen many brilliant and timely ideas emerge during our weekend research hackathons.

However, these insights often require rapid follow-up to maximize their impact. Apart Lab Studio was created to address this need, providing immediate expert support to selected teams within days of their hackathon participation.

Our hackathons produce an incredible variety of research ideas: Some of these achieve maximum impact as a well-crafted blog post while others are well-placed to turn into months-long research projects.

Apart Lab Studio offers the required flexibility and helps teams identify the optimal format and scope for their work, ensuring that promising ideas receive the right level of support and development.

From the Sprints to the Lab

The Studio program consists of two key phases:

1. Dissemination Phase

Success in research isn't just about generating ideas and getting results, it's about communicating your insights effectively. During this phase, participants transform their hackathon projects into polished write-ups and share them with the research community.

Participants will benefit from the guidance of and collaboration with experienced researchers to refine promising ideas and help to build what will become invaluable connections within the AI safety community.

2. Ideation Phase

With their initial ideas documented and shared, participants then take a step back to explore new possibilities. This phase encourages participants to examine variations of their ideas, discover new research directions, and develop proposals that could attract research funding.

Those participants who a) have promising projects that are a great fit for our lab and b) want a career in AI Safety research may be invited to our Apart Lab Fellowship.

Apart Lab Fellowship

The Apart Lab Fellowship is a 4-6 month program is for developing your research proposal into a fully realized, high-impact research project:

• In the fellowship, you'll dive deep into your project, and develop fundamental skills for AI safety research, including experimental design, and scientific communication, as well as expertise tied to your specific project, like LLM evaluation design, or working directly with model internals.
• You will draft a research paper, receive feedback from peers and Apart's community of researchers, and polish your work before submitting to top conferences.

Impact

Apart Lab has already demonstrated remarkable success. Our fellows have published their research in prestigious venues including NeurIPS, ACL, and ICLR - all starting from weekend hackathon projects.

The new Apart Lab Studio program addresses several critical additional needs in the AI safety research community:

• Timely support: Selected teams receive expert support within days of their hackathon participation, maintaining crucial momentum.
• Flexible involvement: Researchers can explore their potential without committing to a lengthy fellowship upfront.
• Globally accessible: Talented individuals worldwide can participate, regardless of their current location or commitments.
• Tailored assistance: Perhaps most importantly, projects receive tailored support based on their specific needs and potential impact.

Join our Community!

Ready to begin your AI safety research journey? Start by joining our hackathons - sign up to our newsletter here to stay informed about upcoming events.

Whether your project leads to a compelling blog post, a conference paper, or a full research career - come be a part of our global research community.

For more information about Apart Lab Studio and our other programs, visit apartresearch.com/lab.