EA Global (EAG) and EAGx are a series of conferences for members of the effective altruism (EA) community.

Both EA Global and EAGx conferences typically last around 2-3 days. They involve talks, workshops, discussions, and many chances to network with people interested in effective altruism. The conferences can range in size, from several hundred to over a thousand attendees!

Although the events are very similar, there are some differences between EA Global and EAGx events. For example, EA Global is organized by the Centre for Effective Altruism, while EAGx is organized by members of the EA community, with support from the events team. See below for more information.

Both EA Global (EAG) and EAGx events are quite similar; they are opportunities for people interested in effective altruism to make connections, exchange ideas, and attend talks and workshops over the course of a few days.

Just like there are TED and TEDx conferences, there are EAG and EAGx conferences. The 'x' indicates that this is a community-organised EAG event.

EA Global conferences are organized by the Centre for Effective Altruism, and people from all over the world attend these. The team at CEA is responsible for choosing the content, processing admissions, and the event's production.

EAGx events, on the other hand, are mostly community-organized (with some support from the EA Global team). The target audience for EAGx events is broader than EAG, but tends to have a more regional focus. CEA provides funding and support to EAGx events (eg. access to our event app), but the local community organisers are responsible for choosing content, processing admissions, and the event's production.

EA Global and EAGx events are designed to help members of the effective altruism community make progress on the world's pressing problems by sharing new thinking and research as well as starting or coordinating on important projects. We have an admissions system for EA Global and EAGx events, to help us select for applicants who seem most able to help each other pursue these goals.

You can read more about what we’re looking for here or the admissions section of the FAQ, but in short:

EA Global is mostly aimed at people who have a solid understanding of the core ideas of EA and who are taking significant actions based on those ideas. Many EA Global attendees are already professionally working on effective-altruism-inspired projects or figuring out how best to work on such projects.

EAGx conferences are primarily for people who are:

• Familiar with the core ideas of effective altruism
• Interested in learning more about what to do with these ideas
• From the region or country where the conference is taking place (or living there)

If you want to attend but are unsure about whether to apply, please err on the side of applying!

We sometimes admit people who view themselves as less experienced. We also sometimes admit people who are less invested in effective altruism than other applicants, but whose professional background or studies make them well placed to help other attendees at the conference achieve their goals.

You must be 18 or older at the time of the event in order to attend EAG and EAGx events. In the past, we allowed under 18s to attend with a chaperone. Unfortunately, this is no longer allowed due to our current insurance policy.

Volunteers are crucial to the success of our conferences! Before EA Global, volunteers are asked to do 2.5 hours of pre-event training. During the event, volunteers generally complete one 4-6 hour shift each day. Besides these time commitments, volunteers participate in the conference as all attendees do. For this reason, we require volunteers to be accepted to the conference as an attendee before they can join the volunteer team.

Volunteers help the conference run smoothly in a variety of ways, such as liaising with speakers, welcoming attendees, managing the content rooms, and helping attendees navigate the venue.

In the past, volunteers have found connecting with each other and the conference organisers to be extremely valuable. We view this benefit as a crucial aspect of the volunteering process.

We think volunteering is particularly useful for:

• Attendees who want to test their operations or event-running skills
• Attendees who would like to help ensure the conference is a success
• First-time attendees who don’t expect to be completely booked with meetings
• Attendees who would like to meet other volunteers or work with the organising team

To volunteer, simply express interest in the application or registration form for EA Global, or email us at hello@eaglobal.org.

We typically require attendees to buy a ticket. For EA Global events that require tickets, the default price is $500 though we offer reduced-price and free tickets to those who might need them. Students and attendees seeking work will have an opportunity to request a free ticket as part of the application form.

Some of our EA Global Events are free to attend—this will be made clear on the registration page for the relevant event. We do ask that you consider donating, and when registering for the conference you will have an opportunity to do this. Just like our ticketed events, our suggested donation is £400 ($500).

EAGx events are organised separately and ticket prices will vary by event. Some of our EAGx events are also free to attend—this will be made clear on the registration page for the relevant event. We do ask that you consider donating, and you will have an opportunity to do this when registering for the conference. Please see the relevant event for the details.

Our events cost between $500 and $2,000 per person to run, with EAGx events on the lower side and EA Global events on the higher side. There are relatively few venues that are well-located and large enough to accommodate our events and the costs to host events at these venues are often high, with large line items like catering and audio-visual (AV) services heavily marked up.

We’re working to reduce these costs. Recently, we’ve reduced the number of meals we serve at our events, negotiated more competitive AV quotes, limited how much travel support we provide to attendees and identified cheaper venues. Still, we ask that attendees consider supporting us so that we can continue to run these events for the benefit of the effective altruism community.

We also offer some travel support. If you need travel support, you should let us know during your application; there is a designated question about this. Requesting travel support does not lower your chance of being accepted to the conference.

You can see more on travel support here and in FAQs below.

Please see our full travel support policy here for more details.

Many attendees can use their own funds to cover travel and accommodation for the conference, or can ask for them to be covered by their employer or university. While we'd like for attendees to use these funding sources wherever possible, others may need financial support in order to attend.

If you need travel support, let us know during your application; there is a designated question about this. Requesting travel support does not lower your chance of being accepted to the conference.

In 2025, attendees are eligible to receive funding for a maximum of one EA Global conference for the year (note: this does not include EAGx conferences).

If you attend an EA Global in 2025 without funding, you’re still eligible to apply for funding to another EA Global that year, though we may down-weigh your funding application (as we try to fund people who’ve been to fewer EA Globals). This decision is based on decreased availability in travel funding.

Please read the full travel support policy to find out more. If you have any questions, please contact admissions@eaglobal.org.

If you may need a visa in order to attend, you should apply as early as possible, and let us know during your application; there is a designated question about this. We can provide you with a visa letter if you are admitted. Unfortunately, we're unable to offer advice regarding visa application processes.

Refunds are possible for certain events up to a few weeks before the event. Please check the relevant event page for details. If you believe you are eligible for a refund, please contact us at admissions@eaglobal.org.

We've found that attendees get much more value from the conference if they prepare in advance.

Here are some concrete steps you can take to prepare for the conference itself:

• Make a list of your priorities — what you’d like to get out of the conference
• Make a plan of action based on those priorities
• Follow the instructions in the emails you’re getting and make yourself a profile on Swapcard (our event app)
• Look through other people’s profiles and connect with those you’d like to meet with or who share your interests
• Look through sessions on the agenda and register for the ones you’d like to attend (and bookmark the ones you’re interested in but which you’re less sure about)
• Be realistic - plan in adequate time to rest, refuel and to have spontaneous conversations
• Read Forum posts tagged “effective altruism conferences” for lots more tips on how to get the most out of attending a conference

In general, attendees are responsible for booking their own accommodation. We also have a conference-specific Slack for each event which includes a channel for coordinating accommodation with other attendees.

Swapcard is the app we use for our events. Attendees use it to:

• Look at the agenda and register for the content sessions they’d like to attend
• Make a profile to help you connect with other attendees - you can say what you do, what you’re interested in talking about, what ideas or expertise you can give others, and how to contact you
• Request 1-1 or small group meetings with other attendees - choose the people, the time, and the meeting point
• Send messages to coordinate with other attendees, during and after the conference
• Find key information about the event, such as the attendee guide, map, wifi, jobs board, or what time food is being served

Once your application has been accepted to the conference, you'll be given access to the event Swapcard page roughly 1-2 weeks before the event.

You can suggest a speaker (including yourself) or share other content ideas using this form.

This form does not guarantee that a content suggestion will be included in a conference, nor that each entry will receive a response. However, we're grateful for submissions to this form and we monitor form responses regularly.

You can also email speakers@eaglobal.org, or contact specific EAGx teams by using the email address on their event page.

Catered food at our conferences is typically vegan. Any non-vegan or allergy-specific food will be labeled. Each event will share a participant guide with accepted attendees shortly before the conference, which will cover many logistics, including more information about food at the conference.

If you need to bring your own food, we are usually able to help you with refrigerator space — please ask at hello@eaglobal.org.

We try to make our conferences accessible to everyone. Please ask at hello@eaglobal.org if you have questions about accessibility or if you need us to make any accommodations.

The COVID protocols will vary by event, as the situation and location changes.

For EA Global events we are not currently imposing any COVID restrictions, though we recommend attendees to be up to date with WHO-approved vaccines.

When possible at our venues, we set up space outdoors or areas with good ventilation.

At EA Global, EAGx events and social events associated with EA Global or EAGx events, all attendees agree to:

• Respect the boundaries of other participants.
• Look out for one another and try to help if you can.
• Adhere to national and local health and safety regulations, as well as any additional policies we institute for EA Global.

This is a professional learning and networking event. These behaviors don't belong at EA Global or related events:

• Unwanted sexual attention or sexual harassment of any kind.
• Using the event app to request meetings for romantic or sexual reasons.
• Offensive, disruptive, or discriminatory actions or communication.

We understand that human interaction is complex. If you feel able, please give each other the benefit of explaining behavior you find unwelcome or offensive.

If you’re asked to stop a behavior that’s causing a problem for someone, we expect you to stop immediately.

You can contact us at hello@eaglobal.org if you have any questions.

All our conferences have at least one community contact person whose role is to be available for personal or interpersonal problems that come up. Feedback can also be left anonymously on the event survey, or on the community health team’s anonymous contact form.

For general enquiries, please email us at hello@eaglobal.org. We can redirect you to the right teams from here.

You can find EAGx organising team email addresses on their specific event pages.

For EA Global admissions related questions please contact admissions@eaglobal.org.

For anonymous feedback, use CEA's form here.

To cancel your registration, please complete the following steps:

1. Log in to your EA Global account and go to the 'My Event Registrations' tab.
2. Navigate to the relevant EA Global event and click 'Manage'. This will open your registration record.
3. To the right of your registration record, you will see a small form titled, 'No Longer Interested in Attending?'
4. Please fill this out and click, 'Request Registration Cancellation'.

EA Global is a conference series for members of the effective altruism (EA) community, organised by the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA). EA Global conferences typically last around 3 days and involve talks, workshops, discussions, and many chances to connect and network with people in EA.

EA Global and EAGx events are designed to help members of the effective altruism community make progress on the world's pressing problems, by sharing new thinking and research as well as starting or coordinating on important projects. We have an admissions system for EA Global and EAGx events to help us select applicants who seem most able to help each other pursue these goals.

You can read more about what we’re looking for here or in the admissions section of the FAQ, but in short:

EA Global is mostly aimed at people who have a solid understanding of the core ideas of EA and who are taking significant actions based on those ideas. Many attendees are professionally working on effective-altruism-inspired projects or figuring out how best to work on such projects.

This may sound like a high bar, but we sometimes admit people who view themselves as less experienced. We also sometimes admit people who are less invested in effective altruism than other applicants, but whose professional background or studies make them well placed to help other attendees at the conference to achieve their goals.

If you want to attend but are unsure about whether to apply, please err on the side of applying!

In general, please write honestly, explain your reasoning, and err on the side of writing more. The better we understand your reasoning, the better-positioned we are to assess whether you would be a good fit for the conference.

We’d like to learn whether you have taken (or intend to take) significant actions to pursue your altruistic goals, and whether these choices are informed by key ideas from effective altruism. By “significant action,” we mean things such as:

• Making career or study decisions based on the principles of effective altruism, such as applying for jobs and internships, choosing a major or field of study, or writing a thesis on a relevant topic
• Spending a lot of your time volunteering for a project in effective altruism or in related spaces

Note that the examples we list in various places (like here or in the application form) are not the only kinds of actions we will consider.

We also sometimes admit people who are less invested in effective altruism than other applicants, but whose professional background or studies make them well placed to help other attendees at the conference achieve their goals.

For EA Global events, we currently don’t prioritize applications based on location.

EA Global admissions are processed by the events team at CEA. Admissions to EAGx conferences will vary a little, as they are events hosted by members of the EA community.

If you were rejected from an upcoming EA Global before the application deadline for that event, you will not be able to reapply for that same event. Once that event deadline has passed, you are welcome to reapply for EA Global.

For example, if you applied to EA Global 2025 before the Bay Area deadline and were rejected, you may reapply for an upcoming EA Global event (in this case, London) once the Bay Area deadline has passed.

An acceptance to EA Global applies to all EA Globals for that year. You can directly register for upcoming conferences in the same year and need not reapply. Please note, if you'd like to attend EA Global the following year, you will need to submit a new application. An acceptance one year does not imply a guaranteed acceptance to future years.

For general enquiries, please email us at hello@eaglobal.org.

For admissions related questions please contact admissions@eaglobal.org.

For anonymous feedback, use CEA's form here.

In the same way that there are TED and TEDx conferences, there are EAG and EAGx conferences. The 'x' indicates that this is an community organised EAG event.

View our upcoming events to see what's currently in the works.

Yes! If you are interested in organising an EAGx conference yourself, please apply here and contact arthur.malone@centreforeffectivealtruism.org with any questions.

To attend an EA Global conference, you will need to:

1. Submit an application form, which the admissions team at CEA will evaluate.
2. If accepted, you will then be invited to register for the conference. For free conferences, you'll have the option to make a donation. For paid conferences, you will be prompted to purchase a ticket. There are various ticket-options, depending on your financial circumstances.

Once accepted to any EA Global conference in 2025, you can register for all announced 2025 EA Global conferences without reapplying. If you are not accepted, you can apply again for conferences later in the year. Please note that there are still application deadlines for specific conferences, in order to allow enough time for application processing before the event.

Users can apply by signing up for or logging in to their www.effectivealtruism.org account. This system is what allows you to register for multiple EA Global events once you're accepted. It also has other useful features, such as checking the status of your applications, editing travel support requests and skipping some questions you've previously answered.

To read more about EA Global admissions, you can check out our forum post.

Admissions to EAGx conferences have some important differences, as they are events hosted by members of the EA community.

We have an admissions system to help us select for applicants who seem most able to help each other pursue their goals. We have found this helps attendees get the most value out of events.

Our admissions criteria has changed over the years. We are adapting and iterating as the EA community itself grows and changes. If you feel like we made a mistake with your application, or you need help updating it to include new information, you can email us at admissions@eaglobal.org.

Having an admissions process means making difficult decisions and trade offs - we don't always get things right.

If you'd like to submit feedback on admissions, you can contact our team at admissions@eaglobal.org or use CEA's anonymous feedback form here.

You can read a lengthy discussion about our admissions criteria in this forum post and its comments. Members of our team have tried to respond to comments where possible.

If we do not accept your application to an EA Global event, this is only a reflection of your fit for that conference, not a comment on your fit for other events or within the effective altruism community more widely.

In general, please write honestly, explain your reasoning and err on the side of writing more. The better we understand your reasoning, the better we can assess whether you might be a good fit for the conference.

We’d like to learn whether you have taken (or intend to take) significant actions to pursue your altruistic goals, and whether these choices are informed by key ideas from effective altruism. By “significant action,” we mean things such as:

• Making career or study decisions based on the principles of effective altruism, such as applying for jobs and internships, choosing a major or field of study, or writing a thesis on a relevant topic
• Spending a lot of your time volunteering for a project in effective altruism or in related spaces

Note that the examples we list in various places (like here or in the application form) are not the only kinds of actions we will consider.

Sometimes, we also admit people who are less invested in effective altruism than other applicants, but whose professional background or studies make them well placed to help other attendees at the conference achieve their goals.

For EA Global events, we currently don’t prioritise applications based on location.

EA Global admissions are processed by the events team at CEA. Admissions to EAGx conferences will vary a little, as they are events hosted by members of the EA community.

In general, please write honestly, explain your reasoning and err on the side of writing more. The better we understand your reasoning, the better we can assess whether you might be a good fit for the conference.

EAGx conferences are primarily for people who are:

• Familiar with the core ideas of effective altruism
• Interested in learning more about what to do
• From the region or country where the conference is taking place (or living there)

We consider people familiar with the core ideas of EA if they have completed an EA introductory program or have engaged with EA content at an equivalent level of depth. We encourage everyone at or above this level to apply to attend EAGx conferences.

You can apply for a free online introductory program here.

If you want to attend but are unsure about whether to apply, please err on the side of applying.

Note that the examples we list in various places (like here or in the application form) are not the only kinds of actions we will consider.

We also sometimes admit people who are less invested in effective altruism than other applicants, but whose professional background or studies make them well placed to help other attendees at the conference achieve their goals.

Admissions to EAGx conferences will vary a little, as they are events hosted by members of the EA community.

Applications are processed on a rolling basis. Generally, most applications will receive a response within 10 working days. Sometimes, during a peak period, it can take longer.

Please let us know if you need a response earlier, for instance if you would need a visa to attend the event or have an alternative reason.

No, indicating an interest to volunteer on your application form does not in any way affect the outcome of your application.

It doesn’t. Each event has its own admissions team, which will independently review your application and assess how it fits their target audience profile. We aren't asking for your preferred ranking of events, as each event will accept you if they think you fit their profile.

If there’s a reason you’d like to specifically go to a conference that’s not in your region, please make this explicit in your application.

We do sometimes suggest that an application for a given event might be a better fit for one of the other events. For EAGx event applications, for instance, we tend to prioritize applicants for whom the given event is the closest (of the events in that year’s schedule). So if you’re from the UK and you apply to EAGxBoston, we may suggest that you attend EAGxOxford, instead.

For EA Global events, we currently don’t prioritize applications based on location.

That’s fine! You don’t need to have a long impactful career behind you or a polished plan for impact to be admitted to an EA Global or EAGx conference. Some of the strongest applications are from people who are too early in their careers to have taken many “significant actions". These applicants were unsure about many things, but we appreciated that they explained their motivations and uncertainties in a thoughtful and transparent way.

We prefer to have as much information as possible when making a decision. If you provide a comprehensive account of your background, experience, motivation, and general approach to doing the most good, we are more likely to accept your application.

However, this doesn’t mean you should write an essay in every text field! How polished the text is doesn’t matter to us at all and bullet points are encouraged. There are also probably aspects of your background that aren’t very relevant; rather than writing up everything you can think of, consider taking a few minutes to reflect on which aspects of your experience and life philosophy you most wish to highlight.

We occasionally accept applications that are quite sparse. This is usually because the applicant’s background strongly demonstrates their commitment to the principles of effective altruism or that their skills or experience make them particularly well-placed to help other attendees.

Only the admissions team and approved individuals (e.g. relevant employees at the Centre for Effective Altruism) will see your application unless you consent to sharing details with other EA organizations for the purpose of connecting you to collaborators and opportunities. If you consent to this, we may pass along information to EA organizations who are looking to hire, searching for people to invite to themed events, etc.

CEA respects your privacy and will use your information in accordance with its privacy policy, which also sets out your rights.

We send direct invitations to those working at relevant organisations, or those we expect to provide significant value to the event. We don’t currently have systems to capture everyone for whom this is true, but we use some proxy measures that allow us to cut down on a lot of unnecessary work.

Not really.

We sometimes reach out to group organizers with whom we have a history of communication and ask them to refer group members they think are a good fit for the event. While we treat the fact that you got referred as some information about your application, the application is still the key part of the decision, and we sometimes decide not to admit someone despite a recommendation.

If you are a group organizer and we ask you for referrals, please remind everyone, including the group members you refer, that they should write a comprehensive application.

No. We don’t reject people for disagreeing with CEA or for expressing controversial ideas.

We might reject someone’s application for things like:

• Expressing disagreement in a destructive or irresponsible way
• Advocating for or taking actions that we see as harmful (like calling for violence or encouraging projects with a lot of irresponsible downside risk)

We also don’t penalize people based on whether or not they favor any prominent EA approaches to cause prioritization. However, we do scrutinize their stated reasons for their cause prioritization, and we do update negatively if people are focused on areas that people in the community don’t currently prioritize without giving some thoughtful reasons, as this is sometimes a sign that people are dogmatic about their cause prioritization.

Unfortunately, we generally do not elaborate on our admissions decisions. However, if you would like answers to a question about a rejection, you can email us at admissions@eaglobal.org and we will do our best to reply.

Rejection only means that the admissions team for a particular event did not think that your application demonstrated your fit for that event. A rejected application is not a judgement about the value of your work or your potential impact in effective altruism. Rejections do not signal to funders or potential employers that they shouldn’t collaborate with you, nor that you are somehow not part of this community. We do not share information about rejected applications with anyone who doesn’t need to know this information.

The admissions process narrowly considers your fit for a conference, and even then, the process is imperfect; we are aware of times when we erroneously rejected someone who would have been a good fit.

If you’re rejected from a conference, you are absolutely welcome to apply to other conferences in the future.

If your application is rejected and you don’t think it should have been, please email admissions@eaglobal.org.

If there's information that wasn't included on your original application that you think might be relevant to our decision, you (or someone on your behalf) can contact us at admissions@eaglobal.org with more details. New information may be considered, but in general, it's rare for admissions decisions to change.

We understand that some of our decisions may seem arbitrary, but we often have to make decisions with incomplete information, and there may have been aspects of the other person’s application that stood out, even if your backgrounds are quite similar. Feel free to let us know via email if you disagree with a judgement we’ve made.

The most common reason for rejecting someone is that we think they would not be a good fit for the event. Each event is designed with a specific audience in mind, and we try to select for people who will get the most out of the conference they are applying for.

Occasionally, we reject applications because we’re mildly concerned about the applicant’s past behavior at an event. This could include a record of overconfidence, excessive self-promotion, or rudeness that negatively impacted other attendees. We likely won’t go into detail about this when responding to applicants, but we will look for evidence that these behaviors have improved when we consider someone’s future applications. We’ve seen people we were initially concerned about change over time and be admitted to EA Global conferences after getting rejected for this sort of reason.

In rare cases, we have serious concerns about an applicant’s past behavior (examples include harassment or fraud). We reject applications from people about whom we have these kinds of concerns.

If you want to know whether we have concerns about your behavior, email us about this and we will let you know (in most cases, the answer will be 'no').

If we do have concerns, we will share them if we can. However, because we must respect the confidentiality of people who report issues at our conference, we will sometimes only be able to tell you the broad nature of the problem.

Please email us at hello@eaglobal.org.