Research & student founder programs (2026)
Programs for academics, researchers and student founders: research credits, fellowships, university commercialisation grants and student competitions.
We track 19 programs in this category from 15 providers: all 19 are open now. 12 are open to startups worldwide and 7 are limited to specific countries or regions. The largest headline value among open programs is OTF Internet Freedom Fund from Open Technology Fund ($10,000–$900,000 for up to 24 months (ideal ask $50,000–$200,000 for 6–12 months)). Across the 4 open programs with a stated value, the median is $10,500. Most common types: LLM API credits (3), EU supercomputer access (3), Academic cloud credits (2), Government AI compute (2). 16 do not require a registered company, and 16 accept students or researchers. The next dated deadline or opening is 13 November 2026 (EuroHPC AI Factories — Large Scale Access).
Guides: Startup grants and free credits for student founders (2026)
All 19 programs, open first and largest first
| Program | What you get | Where | Status | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OTF Internet Freedom FundOpen Technology Fund | $10,000–$900,000 for up to 24 months (ideal ask $50,000–$200,000 for 6–12 months) | Worldwide | Open | 2026-10-30 |
| Anthropic AI for Science ProgramAnthropic | Up to $20,000 in Claude API credits over 6 months | Worldwide | Open | 2026-10-22 |
| OpenAI Researcher Access ProgramOpenAI | Up to $1,000 in OpenAI API credits | Worldwide | Open | 2026-10-22 |
| Azure for StudentsMicrosoft | $100 Azure credit for 12 months + free services; renewable yearly while a student | Worldwide | Open | 2026-10-22 |
| AWS Cloud Credit for ResearchAmazon Web Services | Students up to $5,000; faculty/staff awards uncapped and sized to the proposal | Worldwide | Open | 2026-10-22 |
| Cohere Labs Catalyst GrantsCohere | Free Cohere API credits (amount not published) | Worldwide | Open | 2026-10-22 |
| EuroHPC AI Factories — Fast Lane AccessEuroHPC Joint Undertaking | Up to 50,000 GPU hours free for 1–3 months | EU | Open | 2026-10-22 |
| EuroHPC AI Factories — Large Scale AccessEuroHPC Joint Undertaking | More than 50,000 GPU hours free (up to millions per proposal) for 3–12 months | EU | Open | 2026-10-22 |
| EuroHPC AI Factories — Playground AccessEuroHPC Joint Undertaking | Free entry-level GPU allocation on an EU AI Factory supercomputer for 1–3 months | EU | Open | 2026-10-22 |
| GitHub Student Developer PackGitHub | Bundle of free tools and credits: GitHub Pro, Copilot Student, Codespaces, $100 Azure credit, JetBrains, Heroku $13/mo for 24 months, and… | Worldwide | Open | 2026-10-22 |
| Google Cloud Research CreditsGoogle | Google Cloud credits sized to your proposal (amount not stated on page), valid 1 year | 75 countries | Open | 2026-10-22 |
| Google TPU Research Cloud (TRC)Google | Free access to a cluster of 1,000+ Cloud TPU devices (no $ value stated) | Worldwide | Open | 2026-10-22 |
| Hugging Face Community GPU GrantsHugging Face | Free GPU hardware (typically ZeroGPU) for selected Hugging Face Spaces (no $ value stated) | Worldwide | Open | 2026-10-22 |
| NAIRR Pilot — Research ResourcesU.S. National Science Foundation (NAIRR Pilot) | 12-month allocations of compute, model and platform resources from the NAIRR Pilot catalog (no $ value stated) | United States | Open | 2026-10-22 |
| NAIRR Pilot — Start-Up ProjectsU.S. National Science Foundation (NAIRR Pilot) | Up to 2,000 GPU-hours (or equivalent) on one national AI resource for 3 months | United States | Open | 2026-10-22 |
| NSF ACCESS AllocationsU.S. National Science Foundation (ACCESS) | Free HPC/GPU allocations: Explore up to 400K, Discover 1.5M, Accelerate 3M ACCESS credits; Maximize larger | United States | Open | 2026-10-22 |
| Sovereign Tech FundSovereign Tech Agency (Germany) | Funds maintenance and development work on open-source infrastructure; minimum project size €50,000 (no maximum published) | Worldwide | Open | 2026-10-30 |
| Vast.ai EDU Pricing and CreditsVast.ai | Discounted EDU GPU pricing plus research credits (amount not published) | Worldwide | Open | 2026-10-22 |
| Weights & Biases Academic (free for research)Weights & Biases (CoreWeave) | W&B is free for students, educators and academic researchers. | Worldwide | Open | 2026-10-23 |
Other categories
AI credits for startups · Cloud credits for startups · GPU credits for startups · Free developer tools for startups · Data & analytics perks for startups · Security & compliance perks for startups · Business software perks for startups · Banking & payments perks for startups · Cash grants & prizes for startups · Government grants for startups · Equity-free accelerators & incubators
Program terms change often. Open a program to see its official source and verification date, and confirm on the provider's page before you apply. Spotted something out of date? Report a correction.