--- alias: - Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative - BERI category: Private Organization created: 2026-06-20 location: Berkeley, California summary: The Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative is the nonprofit founded in 2017 by Andrew Critch that provides free operational support and grants to university research groups working on existential risk, funded chiefly by Jaan Tallinn and Open Philanthropy. tags: - Organization - BerkeleyExistentialRiskInitiative - ExistentialRisk - EffectiveAltruism - AISafety - JaanTallinn updated: 2026-06-20 --- The Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (BERI) is an American nonprofit founded in 2017 that supports academic research groups studying risks to the long-term survival of humanity. Its distinctive method is to supply university centers with services and staff that universities are slow to provide, hiring contractors, engineers, and assistants and handling logistics on behalf of researchers, and it also makes grants to such groups. BERI is funded chiefly by the Skype cofounder [Jaan Tallinn](/people/jaan-tallinn/) and by [Open Philanthropy](/organizations/open-philanthropy/), and it has served as an operational and grantmaking intermediary in the existential-risk and AI-safety field, including for Tallinn's [Survival and Flourishing Fund](/organizations/survival-and-flourishing-fund/).[^1][^2] ### The 2017 Founding and the Free-Services Model BERI was founded in 2017 by Andrew Critch, a mathematician and AI-safety researcher then associated with the [Machine Intelligence Research Institute](/organizations/machine-intelligence-research-institute/) and the University of California, Berkeley, and it registered as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) charity based in Berkeley. The organization's premise is that university research centers working on existential risk are often hamstrung by the administrative limits of their host institutions, which are slow to hire support staff, buy equipment, or pay outside contractors, and that an external nonprofit can act as a force multiplier by providing those things quickly and flexibly. Since 2020 BERI has been run by its executive director Sawyer Bernath.[^1][^3] In practice BERI offers what it calls free services to the groups it collaborates with, paying for research assistants, software engineers, technical writers, translators, editors, event logistics, and computing resources, so that academic researchers can concentrate on their work rather than on procurement and administration. The model treats the bottleneck on existential-risk research as operational rather than purely intellectual, and BERI positions itself as the back-office and funding hub that removes that bottleneck for the centers it works with.[^1][^3] ### The University Collaborations BERI's central activity is a set of collaborations with university research groups, the most prominent of which is the Center for Human-Compatible AI (CHAI) at the University of California, Berkeley, the AI-safety laboratory led by the computer scientist Stuart Russell. Through these collaborations BERI hires and pays people who work alongside the academic centers without being on the university payroll, and it has at various times worked with groups including the [Centre for the Study of Existential Risk](/organizations/centre-for-the-study-of-existential-risk/) at Cambridge and the [Future of Humanity Institute](/organizations/future-of-humanity-institute/) at Oxford.[^3][^4] The arrangement extends the reach of donors who want to support a university center but find that the university itself cannot easily absorb or spend the money. By channeling support through BERI, a funder can pay for the staff and services a center needs without navigating the institution's bureaucracy, an approach BERI has described as building trust-based relationships with a small number of research groups rather than making open grant competitions its main work.[^3][^4] ### Funding BERI is funded by the same small set of donors that supports much of the existential-risk and AI-safety field. As of July 2022 the organization reported having received more than 7 million dollars from Jaan Tallinn, more than 3.3 million dollars from Open Philanthropy, more than 1.6 million dollars from the Survival and Flourishing Fund, 100,000 dollars from the [FTX Future Fund](/organizations/ftx-future-fund/), and roughly 5 million dollars from other funders. Tallinn is its single largest backer.[^2][^5] BERI announced its first grants program in September 2017, and its early grantmaking, funded by Tallinn, was one of the channels through which his existential-risk giving flowed before he formalized the Survival and Flourishing Fund and its S-process in 2019; BERI has continued to act as a grantmaking and fiscal intermediary that distributes some of the funds the S-process recommends. The concentration of its support among a handful of donors, principally Tallinn and Open Philanthropy, mirrors the funding structure of the wider field it serves.[^2][^6] [^1]: "Info," Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative, on the mission to improve civilization's long-term prospects, the collaboration-with-university-groups strategy, the free-services model, the 2017 founding by Andrew Critch, and the leadership of Sawyer Bernath since 2020. https://www.beri.org/ [^2]: "Our Funding" and financial disclosures, Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative, on the July 2022 totals of more than 7 million dollars from Jaan Tallinn, more than 3.3 million from Open Philanthropy, more than 1.6 million from the Survival and Flourishing Fund, 100,000 dollars from the FTX Future Fund, and about 5 million from other funders. https://www.beri.org/ [^3]: "Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative," Effective Altruism Forum topic entry, on the 2017 founding by Andrew Critch, the operational-support model, and the work with university groups. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/topics/berkeley-existential-risk-initiative [^4]: "Collaborations," Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative, on the partnership with the Center for Human-Compatible AI under Stuart Russell at UC Berkeley and other research groups. https://www.beri.org/collaborations [^5]: "March 2017: Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative," Effective Altruism Funds, on early grant support to BERI. https://funds.effectivealtruism.org/payouts/march-2017-berkeley-existential-risk-initiative-beri [^6]: "Announcing BERI's first grants program," Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative, September 25, 2017, on the first grants program funded by Jaan Tallinn. https://existence.org/2017/09/25/announcing-beris-first-grants-program.html