Got a bold cybersecurity idea? Surfshark's €100K advocacy fund could back it up

Surfshark's Cybersecurity Advocacy Fund offers up to €100K a year It's open to university groups, students, and faculties worldwide The first submission window opens in September 2026 Surfshark, one of the best VPN services, is now putting money behind the people it believes can help close the gap between online threats and public understanding.

The company has launched a Cybersecurity Advocacy Fund worth up to €100,000 a year, aimed at students, researchers, and university groups.

The fund is designed to bridge academic research and real-world impact, pairing financial support with direct collaboration from Surfshark 's in-house experts.

Rather than funding its own products, it looks for ideas emerging from classrooms, labs, and creative spaces.

Scams have become one of the most common threats people face, and the fund's first cycle — which opens in September — arrives with anti-scam work named as a priority.

Surfshark – the best cheap VPN Surfshark is a fast, easy-to-use VPN that seriously beats the competition when it comes to subscription pricing.

Its two-year Starter plan works out at $2.49 a month (plus tax), but we think Surfshark One is the best value plan as it adds an antivirus, data breach monitor, and alternative ID tool starting from the equivalent of $2.79 a month.

View Deal Why Surfshark is funding ideas outside its own walls Cybersecurity threats are evolving faster than most people can keep up with, from phishing and data leaks to increasingly sophisticated scams.

The scale is hard to overstate: independent research from the Global Anti-Scam Alliance and Feedzai estimates that around $442 billion is lost to scams worldwide each year, while Norton's data points to nearly 174 scam attempts every second.

Surfshark argues that closing that awareness gap takes more than corporate solutions.

The company describes the fund as "an investment in expertise that sits outside our own walls," according to Gabriele Sinkeviciute, its Head of Product.

The idea grew out of " Bot or Not? ", a Malmö University student project that found nearly half of participants could not reliably tell bot-written comments from human ones. (Image credit: Future) NEW : Leave No Trace — A weekly newsletter on digital privacy and online surveillance.

Leave No Trace investigates the companies and governments putting our digital freedom at risk — and the people fighting back. 📩 Subscribe now to get every edition delivered to your inbox every Friday, launching this September.

How to apply to Surfshark Cybersecurity Advocacy Fund To be eligible, applicants must be actively enrolled university students, employed faculty such as professors or researchers, or representatives of an officially recognized university group.