Meta Research Awards (RFPs)

Meta Research Awards

Funds academic AI research teams through periodic experimental project awards.

Meta Research issues periodic Requests for Proposals (RFPs) to fund academic research aligned with Meta's mission areas. Awards are paid as unrestricted cash gifts to the faculty member's university — not as in-kind platform credits. Themes published in recent cycles include AI Safety and Security, Content Governance, Privacy-Enhancing Technologies, Networking and Systems, AR/VR and Reality Labs research, Trust and Safety, and Economics and Computation. The AI Safety and Security theme, active as of early 2026, awards between $50,000 and $100,000 per project and covers red teaming, safety for large language models, and defenses against adversarial attacks on generative AI.

Eligibility extends to full-time faculty at accredited academic institutions worldwide, with some RFPs specifying a US-based Principal Investigator. Each RFP carries its own submission window, typically four to eight weeks from opening to close. Meta publishes new RFPs on a continuing basis throughout the calendar year, so the active slate shifts regularly. Typical award range across all themes runs from $25,000 to $100,000, with select larger themes reaching up to $150,000.

Prospective applicants should monitor the Meta Research Awards portal at research.facebook.com/research-awards for newly posted themes, as individual RFP pages carry specific deadlines, topic scope, and any institutional eligibility restrictions not shown on the master landing page. Awards are structured as grants to the institution rather than contracts, with no deliverable obligations beyond the research itself.