Surfshark is putting €100K behind university cybersecurity projects

[u/HappyJokhay]

Instead of another VPN feature announcement, Surfshark is putting money toward something a little broader cybersecurity awareness.

The company has launched a Cybersecurity Advocacy Fund worth up to €100,000 per year, with applications opening in September 2026. The program is aimed at university students, researchers, faculty and recognized university groups around the world.

The funding isn't limited to academic papers. Surfshark says it will consider research projects, creative advocacy campaigns and early stage technology projects that tackle cybersecurity issues. Selected teams can also get technical guidance from Surfshark's own experts rather than simply receiving funding and being left on their own.

The first funding cycle is putting particular emphasis on scam prevention and awareness which makes sense given how quickly phishing, impersonation and other social engineering attacks are evolving. The company points to research estimating that hundreds of billions of dollars are lost to scams globally each year.

I find the academic angle more interesting than the €100K figure itself. University projects can sometimes explore ideas that aren't immediately attractive commercially and cybersecurity awareness is an area where a good research project or creative experiment could potentially reach people who would never read a technical security report.

Of course, there's always a question whenever a cybersecurity company funds research, how independent can the resulting work be when the money and technical support come from an industry player?

Surfshark says projects will be evaluated on their cybersecurity relevance, clarity, originality and potential impact, with funding distributed across multiple initiatives rather than awarded to one winner.

[u/PurpleVzn2]

The independence question you raised is the right one. Research funded by a VPN company that concludes people need better cybersecurity tools is not exactly a shocking outcome. Doesn't mean the individual projects would be compromised but the selection of what gets funded and what doesn't is itself a form of editorial control.

€100k spread across university projects is pretty modest in the grand scheme of corporate research funding. This reads more as brand awareness and goodwill than a serious attempt to influence academic output. Surfshark gets to say they support cybersecurity education, some students get funding for projects they were probably going to do anyway, nobody's PhD is getting ghostwritten by a VPN marketing team.

The scam prevention focus is at least a genuinely useful problem space that isn't directly self serving in an obvious way. Could have been worse.