Science Program director Jon Kaye spoke with Inside Philanthropy’s Tate Williams about the foundation’s decision to wind down its Marine Microbiology Initiative (the longest-running initiative in our Science Program), the importance of identifying and funding niche areas in basic science, and a new area of research: Symbiosis in Aquatic Systems Initiative.
Williams writes “One of Moore’s ambitions in its science funding is to back work that carries some technical or conceptual risk that an idea won’t bear fruit, but which, if it did, could really move things forward.” The Marine Microbiology Initiative is a good example of this approach. The foundation identified a large, complex opportunity where early and sustained investment could lead to significant impact.
Virginia Armburst, a professor in biological oceanography at the University of Washington and a Moore Foundation grantee, told Williams “What Moore Foundation funding did for me as a scientist was, it allowed me to dream big. And actually, dreaming big is not easy. Some of my most fruitful and novel projects have come through foundation funding.”
Providing scientists with resources and giving them the flexibility to explore is an important role for philanthropy, and is at the heart of the foundation’s Science Program. Williams writes about the relationship between public and private funding of scientific research, noting “government agencies supply the lion’s share of basic research funding in the United States, far more than philanthropy. So philanthropists try to find gaps or complementary ways to fund science. One such approach is to support untested subject matter that might have a hard time landing other backing.”
Read the full article: How a Major Research Funder Decided to Wrap Up its Longest-Running Science Initiative
Message sent
Thank you for sharing.