At Surfshark, we believe in the next generation of digital rights advocates who are already out there — in classrooms, labs, and creative spaces and help them bring their ideas to life.
We’re not only looking for solutions. We’re looking for ideas that raise awareness, spark conversation, and make digital risks visible.
This program is open to academia — students, professors, and university groups working on ideas connected to cybersecurity awareness.
We’re looking for initiatives that fall into one or more of the following areas:
Art installations, campaigns, or interactive concepts that make digital threats tangible and easier for wider audiences to understand.
Papers and studies that explore cybersecurity risks, digital threats, and how people understand and respond to them.
Concepts or early-stage innovations where in-house experts can collaborate, support development, or help refine the idea further.
What matters most is not the format, but the impact. We’re looking for ideas that clearly connect to cybersecurity awareness, translate complex issues into something people can understand, and bring a fresh perspective to existing problems.
Initiatives selected for the fund may receive one or more of the following types of support:
Part of an annual fund of up to €100,000, distributed across multiple selected initiatives.
Guidance, mentorship, or collaboration with in-house experts where needed.
Support in amplifying your work through media, social channels, and Surfshark platforms.
The fund runs in cycles throughout the year. Applications open twice — in September and February — and stay open for the full month. After each submission period, selected initiatives are contacted and supported through the following months. Please note that not all applicants will be contacted, and we’re not able to provide individual feedback on every submission.
Submissions for the next cycle will open in September. Until then, if you have any questions about the Cybersecurity Advocacy Fund, feel free to reach out.
One of the projects previously supported by the fund is “Bot or Not” — a student-led interactive experience developed by students from Malmö University, Sweden. The project explores how easily people confuse bots with humans online, highlighting the growing issue of bot-driven interactions and their impact on digital trust.
By turning research into an interactive experience, the students helped raise awareness of the bot problem in an innovative and engaging way, making an abstract issue feel real and accessible to a wider audience.
