About this role
San Francisco is the location for the Mercor AI Research Fund Grants, a temporary funding opportunity offered by Mercor. This program suits researchers at universities, non-profit organizations, public benefit corporations, and small startups aiming to study frontier artificial intelligence capabilities.
Role Overview
Mercor offers financial support through research grants totaling $5 million to investigate whether frontier artificial intelligence systems deliver practical value in real-world environments. Selected recipients receive backing for specific, well-scoped proposals rather than general research rotations. Award recipients maintain ownership of their generated work while supplying a non-exclusive license to the funder.
Key Responsibilities
Requirements
Nice to Have
Skills and Tools
Salary and Benefits
About the Company
Mercor operates as a profitable Series C artificial intelligence data organization valued at $10 billion, maintaining offices in San Francisco, New York City, and London with a five-day in-person work schedule. The organization builds infrastructure connecting human expertise with frontier models through platform domain experts and enterprise benchmark tools.
How to Apply
Candidates must submit an Expression of Interest document detailing their team, background, research proposal, and resource needs on the official company careers page.
Questions candidates ask
Who is eligible to apply for the research grants?
Applicants must be based in the United States or the United Kingdom and affiliated with a university, non-profit research organization, public benefit corporation, or small startup that does not sell artificial intelligence training data.
What expenses does the grant cover?
The funding supports researcher hours, platform expert time, API costs, and stipends for attending events and conferences.
Who retains intellectual property ownership of the research outputs?
Grantees keep full ownership of their work and grant Mercor a non-exclusive commercial license to use it.
What application materials are required?
Candidates must submit a one- or two-page Expression of Interest covering their team background, research accomplishments, proposed project, timeline, and resource requirements.
Are award recipients expected to publish their findings?
Yes, grantees are expected to publish an open dataset, research paper, methodology, or tool under an open license that allows commercial use.