Legal Priorities Project

The Legal Priorities Project is an independent, global research and field-building project founded by researchers at Harvard University. We conduct strategic legal research that mitigates existential risk and promotes the flourishing of future generations, and we build a field that shares these priorities.

You can read our Annual Report for 2022 (including our plans for 2023 and ways to support us) here (also on the EA Forum).

We focus on four cause areas: Law and governance of advanced artificial intelligence, biosecurity & pandemic preparedness, institutional design, and meta-research. Currently, our top priority is law and governance of advanced artificial intelligence.

Our Goals

1. Strategic Research: Our primary goal is to conduct strategic research that can be used by legal actors—for example, policy makers, judges, and litigators—working on the world’s most pressing problems. Our research focuses on mitigating existential risk and promoting the flourishing of future generations.

2. Field Building: We aim to raise awareness about our concern for the long-term future and build a field that shares these priorities. We want to bring together researchers and policy-makers at every level of seniority and support the most effective ways to use the law to protect future generations and mitigate existential risk.

You can find our full research agenda here.

To learn more about our previous successes, you can also browse through our newsletters here.

Would you like to learn more or talk to us? You can always contact us.

Thank you for your support!