Theory of Change
BASE’s theory of change is that AI catastrophic risk and biosecurity risk are harder to address when the fields draw from a narrow talent pool. When research is concentrated within a small group of institutions and networks, it can create blind spots in how these risks are understood and addressed. BASE addresses this by engaging with, training, and developing researchers from underrepresented groups, including people from minority communities and the Global South. These researchers can then join existing safety and biosecurity networks or conduct research within their own institutions. A broader range of researchers makes it more likely that risks others miss are spotted and addressed.
BASE puts this theory into practice through three connected parts of its work:
Community of Practice
A 1K+ member professional network connecting researchers, practitioners, and allies. It serves as the first point of access to BASE’s training and community programs, including technical AI safety training, governance training, paper reading sessions, research working groups, networking, mentoring, peer support, and field-wide collaboration. The Community of Practice helps members build knowledge, technical skills, professional connections, and a clearer path into research and other work in AI safety and biosecurity. It is also a source of research ideas that can be developed through the Fellowship or Research Arm.
BASE FELLOWSHIP
The Fellowship is a selective program for highly skilled scholars and practitioners focused on mentored research. Fellows work under the guidance of experienced mentors on well-defined research projects, gaining experience in developing evaluations, procurement tools, auditing techniques, reports, and other research outputs. The fellowship gives people an opportunity to move from training into research and gain experience that could support future work at research institutions, think tanks, policy institutes, frontier labs, and related organizations.
The RESEARCH ARM
The Research Arm is a research institute that supports longer-term work beyond the fellowship. It provides project scoping, peer review, research mentorship, and a home for work that requires a longer timeframe than a fellowship project. The Research Arm produces evaluations, reports, and other public research outputs that can be useful to the broader safety and biosecurity community. It also gives researchers the opportunity to continue their research either within BASE or through affiliated institutions.