Menu
Focusing on urgent, pioneering research to inform and strengthen industry efforts in combatting online CSEA, the Tech Coalition Safe Online Research Fund, launched in 2020, is now entering its fifth year.
The Tech Coalition has so far invested USD 2.5 million in this collaborative effort with Safe Online, supporting 15 cutting-edge research projects delving into a range of issues such as:
In the initial phase of the Tech Coalition Safe Online Research Fund, five organisations were supported to conduct research and expand knowledge on online CSEA prevention. The second funding round emphasised innovative research geared towards online CSEA prevention with eight research and civil society organisations.
In 2023, the Research Fund granted four awards to further accelerate the work of organisations from the first cohort of grantees, supporting organisations to extend research to applications such as piloting solutions, technical collaboration and innovation efforts.
With the collaboration going into its fourth year, in 2024, the Research Fund applied a more targeted approach with a funding round centered around the theme of generative AI. This round of the Research Fund marks a critical development in understanding the benefits for children and young people of genAI technologies as well as the risks associated with AI-generated content.
Tech Coalition and Safe Online convened an Advisory Group, bringing together voices from leading online CSEA-focused organisations, alliances, independent experts, and technology industry representatives from Tech Coalition member companies.
The Advisory Group has been central in steering the direction of the Research Fund—helping define the most pressingresearch needs, setting transparent criteria for selecting projects, amplifying outreach to ensure diverse proposals, and assessing applications to identify the most promising ideas. They’ve helped ensure the fund supports high-quality, impactful research that can make a difference in how the world understands and tackles online CSEA.
Over the years, this group has included the following individuals, reflecting the breadth of expertise engaged in shaping the fund.
Public Policy Lead for Kids and Families at Google
Independent Safety Advisor for Yubo
Policy Operations Manager
Principal, Family Trust at Amazon
Head of Policy at WePROTECT Global Alliance
Big Data Architect and Chief Technology Officer of the Standord Internet Observatory
Director of the Centre to End Online Sexual Exploitation of Children at the International Justice Mission
Child Rights and Business Specialist at UNICEF
Professor of Criminology & Director Institute for Connected Communities, University of East London
Global Exterbak Engagements Lead for Trust & Safety at AWS
Director, Global Safety Policy at Facebook
Outreach and Partnerships Manager for Trust & Safety at TikTok
Director of Safe Online
Head of Research and Insights at Thorn
Grant Management Specialist at Safe Online
Research Program Manager at Facebook
Director at Royal Ottawa Health Care Group & Full Professor in Psychiatry at the University of Ottawa
Grant Management Specialist at Safe Online
E-Safety and Awareness director, SaferNet Brasil
Knowledge and Advocacy Specialist at End Violence
Business Program Manager at Microsoft
This map shows how Research Fund grantees have come together across borders and themes, highlighting the partnerships that have emerged through their work. It offers a snapshot of collaboration within the portfolio, tracing how connections have grown over time.*
Swansea University and Protect Children are collaborating by applying Swansea’s forensic-linguistic expertise to Protect Children’s Finnish-language datasets, generating insights into grooming, language, and communication dynamics in online child sexual exploitation
Swansea University and ZanaAfrica piloted an online safety training in Kenya, with ZanaAfrica contextualizing the content to local norms, communication styles, and capacity needs—ensuring the intervention was accessible, relevant, and grounded in Kenyan realities
The two universities built a peer-advisory partnership grounded in AI/NLP (natural language processing) research to detect online CSEA, sharing insights between TUDublin’s N-Light dark-web and hotline analysis and Universidad de los Andes’ Spanish-language datasets and alert systems, while jointly addressing data labeling, sensitivity, and confidentiality challenges
The University of Kent and Medical School Berlin collaborate on deterrence-based approaches to preventing online CSEA, sharing research and methods on help-seeking behaviors and deterrence messaging to complement and inform each other’s work
ChildSafeNet collaborated with Protect Children VOICES project by translating the survey into Nepali and promoting it locally, ensuring Nepali children’s perspectives were included in the global child protection effort
The Tech Coalition Safe Online Research Fund, a unique collaboration between academia and the tech industry, strengthens the knowledge base on critical emerging threats to children online and prioritises research that drives practical solutions and informs real-world interventions.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to keep up-to-date on the latest progress, news, events and reports from Safe Online and the wider community working to end violence against children.
Copyright Safe Online 2023 ©
All imagery is taken from the Safe Online and UNICEF image library
We are here to ensure every child and young person grows in to the digital world feeling safe, and is protected from harm.
We support, champion, and invest in innovative partners from the public, private, and third sectors working towards the same objective.
We believe in equipping guardians and young people with the skills to understand and see danger themselves once accessing digital experiences without supervision.
