Arcadia Impact was founded in 2022 when our team saw an opportunity to support talented and ambitious students interested in using their careers to tackle the world’s most pressing problems. During 2022/23 we ran events and programmes for students in London, working closely with student groups across London’s universities, and launched the LEAH Coworking Space (now Impact First), an office for people working on various projects aiming to improve the world.

Over time we have expanded our focus to support a growing number of professionals interested in transitioning their careers into AI Safety. In 2024 we adopted LASR Labs which has now supported over 50 researchers to produce 14 research papers in technical AI safety. Of the 8 papers produced on our summer 2024 and spring 2025 cohorts, 7 were accepted to workshops at NeurIPS.

Last year, we concluded our first full cohort of our AI Governance Taskforce, supporting 16 experienced professionals to produce 4 papers on AI governance. Recently, we were selected as a recipient for a grant from the UK AI Security Institute’s Alignment Project to build alignment research capacity, collaborating with AISI’s alignment team.

We’ve also supported the launch of multiple projects advancing our mission. We recently launched Impact First, rebranding some of our work supporting students and professionals in London to build high-impact careers. In 2024, we launched the Orion AI Governance Initiative, which has supported 57 participants across its programmes and placed 2 people into AI policy roles at think tanks and AI governance organisations. Through the AI Safety Engineering Taskforce, we have worked with the UK AI Security Institute to maintain the Inspect Evals framework.