Support from the Pershing Square Foundation to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory reflects the donor’s willingness to fund the “messy and unpredictable” research in basic sciences, and creates an innovative endowment structure to maximize the impact to fundamental life sciences research. Read the article: Here’s One Foundation That’s Heeding the Call for More Basic Science Funding.
John Pavlus describes how exploring interesting ideas, regardless of application or predictable outcome, lead to new knowledge about our natural world. With stories ranging from quantum electrodynamics to telomeres to number theory, these examples reveal the unanticipated insights that can arise through fundamental research. Read the article: The Pleasure (and Necessity) of Finding Things Out
The annual Chronicle of Philanthropy’s list of the biggest donors is filled with generous support for basic scientific research. As the article shows, philanthropists are doing more than filling in gaps in federal funding. They are focusing on work that is risky, challenging, and uncertain, but with a potential for huge payoffs to society.
The donors on the Philanthropy 50, The Chronicle’s list of the nation’s top donors, committed $1.6-billion to causes that range from expanding research at children’s hospitals and university labs to creating new centers that will investigate the workings of the human cell. Read the article and see the list here.
