Field building refers to influencing existing fields of research or advocacy or developing new ones, through advocacy, creating organisations,  or funding people to work in the field.

Examples of field building activities include scholarships and teaching buyouts (e.g. Forethought Foundation, several grantmakers); Charity Entrepreneurship’s Incubation Program (Charity Entrepreneurship 2021); Future of Humanity Institute’s Research Scholars Programme (Hadshar 2020); and conferences (such as Effective Altruism Global).