Arete Fellowship (Hilary Term 2025)

What is the Arete fellowship

This 6 week seminar group introduces you to the core ideas in Effective Altruism, so you can think about how you can have a positive impact on the world.

Arete (usually pronounced AIR-uh-TAY) is a Greek word loosely meaning excellence or virtue, or living up to one’s potential. It is frequently associated with effectiveness and achieving results.

This program is designed to help you to form your own views on important questions that matter to you and help you have a high impact through your career and donations. 

We will explore questions like:

• How can we prioritise between the world’s most pressing problems?

• Is it possible to measure the impact of charitable efforts?

• What do you value most when helping others?

• What are the most neglected but important problems in the world?

• How can you apply these ideas and make a big difference with your donations and career?

Program discussions will happen in small groups of 3-5 fellows, with an experienced facilitator. Cohorts will meet weekly for 1.5 hours.

what have fellows said about the programme

The perfect first step for people who want to discover their role in making the world a better place

Thanks to the small group size, the excellent facilitators, and the interested like-minded people, there is something for everyone: for those who have never really looked into Effective Altruism, the workshop is a helpful introduction, and for those who are already advanced, it is helpful to find out what you are most interested in personally – I discovered AI governance and alignment for myself through the Fellowship.

Highly recommend! It's a fantastic way to both discover and engage with the many different schools of thoughts within EA.

Rather than telling you how to think, this program explores what you should think about - and keeping an open mind as to solutions to some of the biggest problems is one of the most valuable things that we can do. The more I learnt on this programme, the more I wanted to learn about EA. I have no fewer questions now than when I did at the start of the programme - but the questions now reflect my own personal values and priorities more - and I will take these forward into my career and beyond.

Who is it aimed at?

The program is open to students at all stages of university education as well as non-students based in Oxford. It’s designed for people who are not already familiar with Effective Altruism but who are interested in having a greater positive impact on the world. We encourage students and professionals from any background to apply!

What are the requirements?

The fellowship runs for 6 weeks. To take part, you should be

• Willing to spend 2-3 hours each week preparing for the meeting

• Committed to attending all discussions sessions (unless unforeseen circumstances arise)

• Excited about making a positive impact

• Open to changing your mind

You don’t need any specific background or knowledge to apply!

(If you are already familiar with the core ideas of EA, apply to our Impact Accelerator program)

Curriculum overview

Our curriculum includes literature from across academia and popular media. The programme draws upon knowledge from economics, philosophy, statistics, psychology, social activism, emerging technology and more.

Our Programmes

Arete fellowship

This 6 week seminar group introduces you to the core ideas in Effective Altruism, so you can think about how you can have a positive impact on the world.

Arete (usually pronounced AIR-uh-TAY) is a Greek word loosely meaning excellence or virtue, or living up to one’s potential. It is frequently associated with effectiveness and achieving results.

This program is designed to help you to form your own views on important questions that matter to you and help you have a high impact through your career and donations. 

career accelerator programme

This is a semi-structured in-person co-working group where fellows get the accountability, space and structure to work on their career plans, one-on-one discussions to signpost them to resources and the freedom to explore their careers in a way that suits them. It includes:

• Personalised Career Planning: One-on-one discussions to think through your options and signpost you to opportunities.

• Co-working Sessions: Time and space to work collaboratively on your career goals, which involves dedicated time to plan and reflect on each session

• Networking and Mentorship: Connections to professionals working on high-impact causes.

• Community: We will run optional free dinners after each session to help you connect with more people in EA Oxford.

If you have any doubts or questions, please email Alex, or book a call with him here.

in-depth fellowship

This is a cause neutral discussion group is designed to get help you gain a more thorough understanding of a variety of cause areas and to help you think through how to prioritise between them. Apply to this group if you would like to:

• Learn more about the world’s most pressing problems

• Make progress on prioritising between them

• And practice techniques in applied rationality such as finding the cruxes of disagreements

AI Governance Discussion group

This discussion group takes material’s from BlueDot Impact’s popular AI Governance course. It examines risks posed by increasingly advanced AI systems, ideas for addressing these risks through standards and regulation, and foreign policy approaches to promoting AI safety internationally.

Effective animal advoacy discussion group

This discussion group covers topics such as how we create change, critiques of Effective Animal Advocacy, and planning your career to help animals.

online existential risk discussion group

This is our only exclusively online programme, aimed at making discussions  accessible, personal and up-to date. Coleman Snell, an AI governance and strategy researcher, will have discussions with individual group members to determine their interests and tailor the readings to them.

Applications close midnight, Wednesday 23rd October (2nd week)