Partners and funders
The Institute is funded by research grants, targeted contributions and paid work. This page states what a partner gets, what we ask for, and how the money is accounted for.
Forms of cooperation
Research partnership
Joint work on a shared question: our methodology and analysis, your data or infrastructure, results published in the open with both parties named.
Pilot project
A paid, bounded engagement — typically one scenario set or one measurement report — used to test whether deeper cooperation is worth it for both sides.
Targeted contribution
A donation or targeted contribution that funds a named piece of work: a dataset release, a benchmark, a publication cycle, an open methodology document.
Data and infrastructure
Compute, model access or a de-identified corpus, provided in kind and credited in the resulting papers.
Expertise
Your specialists join a working group or review a manuscript. Time, not money, and it shows up in the acknowledgements.
Education
Co-designed courses and seminars on AI safety for your team, delivered by the Institute under a separate agreement.
What a funder receives
Reporting
A narrative and financial report at the agreed intervals: what was done, what was spent, what changed in the plan and why. Written to be read by a non-specialist.
Open results
Publications, datasets and code released in the open, with the funder credited by name unless the funder asks to remain anonymous.
Independence
A funder does not acquire editorial control. If a finding is inconvenient for a funder, it is published anyway, and the funding relationship is disclosed alongside it.
Traceability
Targeted contributions are accounted for separately from commercial income, which is a legal requirement for a non-profit and also the reason we can show where each rouble went.
How contributions are handled
- A donation agreement is concluded in writing, naming the purpose where the money is targeted.
- Targeted contributions and grants are accounted for separately from commercial revenue and are not treated as taxable income, in accordance with the Tax Code.
- An annual report on the use of property and funds is filed with the Ministry of Justice and published.
- Conflicts of interest are recorded; a partner who funds work is named in the disclosure section of every publication that results from it.
Support letter
For grant applications we provide a support letter describing the cooperation, its subject, its duration and what the partner contributes. A draft is available on request; we do not sign letters describing cooperation that does not exist.