Founding White Paper.

Unaite was created to bring together driven students from France's leading engineering and business schools under one identity. Each edition of its events, Hackeurope among them, has shown how much a student community can organise once it has an identity and a network behind it.

The Unaite Fellowship for AI in Biology grows directly from this. It is a permanent vertical within Unaite, for the members working on the application of machine intelligence to the life sciences.

The founding members hold that serious research does not require a university laboratory or the financing of a doctoral programme. Science has always been collective work, and a great deal of it has come from small groups organised around a shared problem, with or without institutional backing. Given structure, mentorship and a community to work in, a team of motivated people can produce work of real scientific value whatever their affiliation. The Fellowship exists to provide that structure, and it treats research as a practice open to anyone willing to do it seriously.

To find, unite, and accelerate the most ambitious people working at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Biology, and to give them serious peers, experienced mentors, and an institutional identity that makes their work visible.

The Fellowship was built with the support of Singular, a Paris and London-based venture capital firm investing at the frontier of AI, Deep Tech, and Life Sciences, as its Venture Partner. Many of the researchers here will want to act on what they find and build on it beyond publication. Singular has done that work repeatedly, turning research results into companies, and that experience is what it brings to the Fellowship.

Admission is competitive and holistic. The Admissions Committee evaluates candidates on the following dimensions:

Acceptance rate should remain below 20%. Cohort size is capped at 20 members per chapter per year, which keeps selection demanding and the cohort small enough to work as a single group.

Fellows who fail to meet these obligations may be placed on a leave status by the Chapter Lead after a private conversation.

Beyond the mentor class, the Fellowship builds a wider network of Pioneers: founders, builders, and recognised figures in the AI x Biology landscape of each hub. Their commitment is deliberately small, and it sits outside the mentorship programme. A Pioneer attends the annual flagship event, lends their name publicly to the Fellowship, and offers Fellows an occasional introduction or a 30-minute conversation. What they contribute is credibility and reach, at a modest cost in time.

Across Paris, London, and Stanford, the goal is to build a visible network of 20 to 30 Pioneers per hub, drawn from the most credible companies and labs at the frontier.

Eligibility criteria for Pioneers:

Each academic year follows a structured rhythm:

The mentor programme sits at the centre of the Fellowship. Each year, the Steering Committee recruits a class of mentors: 3-6 recognised figures from the BioAI world who commit to a one-year agreement.

A short written reflection for the biannual newsletter, and participation in informal dinners throughout the year, bringing together Fellows, Sponsors, and Investors.

Independent research projects are a core deliverable of the Fellowship year. Every Fellow is expected to carry at least one project, individual or collaborative, from inception to a public or community-facing output. The mechanisms below exist to support and amplify that work.

Once per year, each active chapter organises a public flagship event under the joint Unaite / Unaite Fellowship for AI in Biology brand. This serves as the primary external visibility moment and revenue driver.

Paris, London and Stanford were chosen for their ecosystems: three of the densest concentrations of BioAI research in the world.

Each chapter is operationally autonomous: it runs its own admissions, events, and local partnerships under the common framework defined in this document. Global cohesion is maintained through:

When a Fellow relocates permanently to a chapter city, the following protocol applies:

The protocol keeps a relocating Fellow inside the network and turns the move into an occasion for the receiving chapter.

The Fellowship operates within the Unaite association, which retains a formal advisory role and exercises oversight over decisions engaging the shared brand and co-organised events. Strategic direction is shaped in partnership with Singular, the Fellowship's Venture Partner, which acts as an active advisor on positioning, entrepreneurship-facing programming, and external partnerships, while holding no governance seat. The supreme governing body is the Steering Committee, composed of one elected Chapter Lead per active chapter, the Fellowship Founder(s) during the founding period through 2028, and one elected Alumni representative; it meets monthly and holds authority over major programme decisions, mentor appointments, new chapter approvals, and significant financial commitments. Each Chapter Lead, elected annually by a simple majority of active Fellows within their chapter, carries operational responsibility for admissions, the local event calendar, sponsor relationships, and representation at the Steering Committee. Admissions are conducted by a dedicated Admissions Committee of three to five Senior Fellows, who review and rank all applications before forwarding a shortlist to the mentor class for final selection decisions.

The Steering Committee (SC) is the supreme governing body of the Fellowship. It comprises one Chapter Lead per active chapter (elected annually by chapter Fellows), the Fellowship Founder(s) (permanent seat during founding period, until 2028), and one Alumni representative (elected annually by Alumni Fellows).

The SC meets monthly (remotely) and decides on: major programme changes, mentor appointments, new chapter approvals, financial commitments above €2,000, and code-of-conduct cases.

Each Chapter Lead is elected annually by a simple majority vote of active Fellows within their chapter. Responsibilities include:

The Fellowship operates as a vertical within the Unaite association and maintains a structural relationship with it. Unaite retains a formal advisory role in the Fellowship's governance and may exercise a right of regard over decisions that engage the Unaite brand, co-organised events, or shared infrastructure. In practice, this means that at least one designated representative of Unaite's core leadership is kept informed of the Steering Committee's decisions and may raise objections on matters that affect the broader Unaite community.

On the event side, Unaite may actively co-organise Fellowship flagship events, in particular the annual hackathon, contributing its logistics experience, existing sponsor relationships, and community reach. In these cases, decision-making over format, communication, and budget allocation is shared, and the event is branded jointly. The Fellowship benefits from Unaite's operational infrastructure and network, while Unaite gains a scientific vertical that strengthens its identity at the frontier of AI and Biology.

The Fellowship operates with a single Venture Partner: Singular. The involvement rests on a shared view: that researchers and builders at the AI x Biology frontier need infrastructure of a standard that matches their work, and that the route from rigorous science to company-building is worth building deliberately.

Operational independence is preserved. The Fellowship is governed by its Steering Committee and Chapter Leads. Singular holds no seat in its governance. Program design, admissions, and community decisions remain entirely with the Unaite team, but Singular acts as an active strategic advisor, engaged in shaping the Fellowship's positioning, the entrepreneurship-facing dimensions of its programme, and the quality of its external partnerships.

External communications produced under the Fellowship brand are reviewed and approved by Singular prior to publication, ensuring alignment with the standards and identity that both organisations are building together.

What Singular brings:

The Fellowship does not need significant capital to operate. What it offers is a peer community, mentorship and a network, all of which are made of people. Money covers events, travel grants and compute, and that is the whole of its role. The model is designed to be sustainable from year one and to improve as chapters mature.

The financial model is built on one proposition: what a sponsor gets is repeatable access to a curated pool of early-career BioAI talent, at a density they will struggle to find elsewhere. Every benefit tier is designed around it.

On the scope of partner benefits. The benefits listed in the tiers below are a deliberate minimum, and partners who engage with the community generally get considerably more. The value of proximity to a curated BioAI community compounds over time in ways that are hard to quantify in advance: a Fellow who joins a company's lab, a research collaboration that starts over dinner, a mentor relationship that changes the direction of a PhD. A benefits document can only set out the floor; what a partnership becomes depends on the engagement behind it.

An open invitation. The Fellowship invites prospective partners, whether companies, research institutes, or foundations, to come to the table with their own proposals. The tiers above cover what we already know works, and the list is open. If your organisation has a specific need, wants access to a particular research direction, has a format for engagement we have not considered, or has something to contribute to the community, we would like to hear it. The strongest partnerships grow out of genuine alignment, which a fixed menu cannot anticipate. Write to the Chapter Lead of the relevant chapter to start that conversation.

The Fellowship launches in four sequential phases spanning 2026 to 2028. Phase 0, running from February to April 2026, covers the foundational groundwork: forming the founding team, drafting this white paper, securing the Unaite anchor, and establishing the brand. Phase 1, from May to September 2026, marked the Fellowship's public debut: the application window opened and closed on 13 July 2026, drawing 61 applications; the first Paris cohort (Promo 1) was selected, with 20 Fellows confirmed and a mentor class of six secured; and the year opens in September with the Kick-off Dinner. Phase 2, from October 2026 through June 2027, delivers the full Paris programme in operation: all annual cycle events are held, the first flagship event takes place, recruitment opens for Promo 2, and preparatory work begins for a London chapter. Phase 3, spanning 2027 to 2028, completes the multi-chapter vision: the London chapter launches, the first inter-chapter gathering brings all communities together, Stanford chapter preparation begins, and the Fellowship reaches its founding target of three active chapters.