Our recommended research directions
Explore all our recommended research directions
Search for profiles that are tailored specifically to your degree or discipline using the menu below. If you’re searching for thesis topics, or considering a research career which allows you to make a significant positive impact in the world, we advise you to go through these research directions and learn more about those that seem impactful or interesting to you.
If you are interested in a profile that isn’t listed under your discipline, we still encourage you to explore it if you think you could make progress in this direction. You can also explore all our recommended research directions organised by theme.
- All
- Agricultural science
- Basic medicine
- Biological Sciences
- Business
- Chemical sciences
- Computer and information sciences
- Earth and environmental sciences
- Economics
- Engineering
- Health sciences
- History
- Law
- Maths
- Media and communications
- Philosophy and ethics
- Physical sciences
- Political science
- Psychology and cognitive sciences
- Sociology
AI sentience, moral status and rights
How should the possibility of AI sentience guide the development of AI and related institutions and norms?
Alternative proteins research and development
The consumption of animal products causes suffering to billions of animals each year. Alternatives could shift consumer demand away from animal products.
Anti-ageing research
Aging is a major risk factor for many diseases that medical interventions try to prevent. Can we target aging as an underlying cause of disease?
Antimicrobial resistance
Antimicrobial resistance already kills tens of thousands each year, and could kill millions without innovation. What are the best strategies to prevent it?
Applied mental health research
It’s estimated that around 10% of the population suffers from diagnosable mental health conditions, with most of them not receiving treatment.
Attitudes to existential risk and longtermism
To increase the chance of our species having a flourishing future, it’s helpful to understand how we feel and reason about the future of humanity
Behavioural and attitudinal change in animal products consumption
How do attitudes towards animals affect animal product consumption and what interventions are effective in decreasing it?
Black soldier fly sentience and welfare
Black soldier fly may be farmed on a huge scale in the coming decades. To decrease their potential suffering, we need to understand more about their welfare and capacity for sentience.
Cause specific mortality in wild animals
Understanding the causes of wild animal mortality can help us build a picture of the current state of welfare in nature and how we can improve it.
Charitable donations decision-making research
Charitable donations can do a lot of good, but donors rarely prioritise their impact. How can we encourage more effective philanthropy?
Civilisation collapses
Studying past civilisational collapses may help us predict and safeguard against future collapse and increase the chance of recovery.
Consumer research related to alternative proteins
Demand for animal products is increasing but so is the availability of alternatives. How can consumers be encouraged to explore alternative proteins?
Detection and identification of dangerous pathogens
Using metagenomic surveillance and broad-spectrum diagnostics to detect dangerous pathogens.
Developing solutions to climate change
Climate change is already causing suffering on a huge scale, and may increasingly contribute to many different crises in future. Although many resources are already dedicated to this area, there are gaps that further research is needed to fill.
Farmed animal welfare
Animal agriculture causes suffering to billions of animals each year. How can we improve welfare standards as much as possible?
Forecasting the long-term future
To reliably improve the longterm future, we must address the challenge of predicting the longterm impact of our actions
Global health and wellbeing
In 2021 about 9% of the global population was living in extreme poverty. How can we increase living standards and wellbeing in low- and lower-middle-income countries?
Global priorities research
There are many neglected, foundational uncertainties about what it means to improve the world and what actions we should take to do so
Governance of artificial intelligence
AI could radically transform the world, for better or worse. How can AI governance mitigate the risks and increase the chance it contributes to humanity's flourishing?
Great power coordination
How can we coordinate action between the Great Powers to address existential and global catastrophic risks?
Historical persistence and contingency
Improving predictions of the extent to which important features of the world today will persist into the future, and how contingent the future is on the actions we take in the present, could help inform attempts to create long-lasting positive change.
Human-aligned artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence will likely become an increasingly powerful force shaping humanity’s future, so research to align it with human values is vital.
Improving aquatic animal welfare
How can we help the hundreds of billions of aquatic animals that are raised and killed for human consumption every year?
Improving health and wellbeing metrics
Current health and wellbeing metrics have many shortcomings, leading to misallocation of resources. Developing the 'WELBY' could help.
Improving institutional decision-making
Large institutions have vast resources and capacity to help solve global problems. How can we improve their decision-making processes?
Improving pandemic governance
Pandemics pose a humanitarian crisis that could even threaten humanity’s future. How can governments prepare for future pandemics?
Improving the measurement of animal welfare
Wild animals make up the vast majority of sentient beings, but their welfare is highly neglected. One promising approach to understanding their quality of life is comparing rate of biological aging in different populations.
Improving voting methods
Learning how voting systems have been changed in the past to understand how to improve voting systems used today
Insect welfare in farmed, wild, and research contexts
Insect use and management occurs at a scale rarely seen across the animal taxa; despite this scale, their welfare has largely been neglected.
Longtermism
Is improving the far future one of the key moral priorities of our time? If it is, how should this influence our actions?
Mechanistic interpretability
Mechanistic interpretability could help us understand and control the inner workings of AI systems, ensuring that their decision-making aligns with human values and goals.
Medical interventions against dangerous pathogens
To address future pandemics, we need medical interventions against pathogens to be faster to produce, effective against a broad range of threats, and cheaper and easier to produce at scale.
Moral circle expansion
How can we expand humanity's moral circle to create a more compassionate future?
Moral weight research
Foundational research exploring animals’ experiences and moral standing could help prioritize animal welfare interventions
Most important historical trends
A better understanding of historical trends and what they tell us about humanity's trajectory could inform efforts to improve and prepare for the future
Non-pharmaceutical pandemic interventions
How does the transmission of dangerous pathogens occur and how can innovation in areas such as testing, PPE, distancing and contact tracing reduce transmission?
Preventing great power conflict
Great power war could pose an existential risk, while a breakdown in cooperation could undermine vital coordination on many global problems. How can we reduce the risk of conflict?
Preventing the release of dangerous pathogens
How can we reduce the likelihood of intentional or accidental release of dangerous pathogens?
Progress studies
Advances in science, technology, institutions and culture have caused huge improvements in standards of living. How can we increase the rate of progress?
Nuclear war prevention and recovery
Could nuclear winter pose an existential threat to humanity's future and in what scenarios? How can we decrease the risk of nuclear war and increase civilisational resilience?
Reducing physical pain
Hundreds of millions of people live with chronic pain and other intensely painful conditions. What are the most urgent conditions where progress could be made?
Reducing risks from malevolent actors
How can individuals with particularly dangerous personality traits be prevented from gaining power?
Resilient foods research
How would we feed everyone in the event of a global catastrophe, such as the sun being blocked during a nuclear winter or significant disruption to electricity or industry?
Risks from volcanic eruptions
Volcanic eruptions could lead to catastrophe by causing food shortages and disruption to vital global systems. How can we monitor and mitigate the risks?
Space governance
Outer space is an increasingly valuable resource and may one day be permanently settled. How can its use be safe, sustainable and contribute to a flourishing future?
Understanding the impact of social movements
Social movements can significantly improve the world. What factors determine the change a social movement achieves?
Wildlife fertility control research
Many wild animals suffer due to resource competition. Population management of some species via contraception could increase welfare and survival.
Subscribe to the Future Researchers Newsletter
Where next?
Research agendas
Explore research agendas related to the topics we recommend
How we write our profiles and advice
Learn how we identify the research directions we think are particularly likely to improve the world
Searching for a research topic?
See here for a visual map of all our research directions
Advice
Read our advice for an impactful research career