Getting The Public Invested in Science

Below is a reprint of our most recent press release. Read the actual press release here.

Getting The Public Invested in Science

Pittsburgh, PA – June 1, 2009

FundScience is an online charitable organization which aims to create an open platform for funding the research of promising young scientists.  Its mission is to generate start-up funding for pilot projects while raising public awareness of basic research.  The organization intends to fill a well recognized funding gap of the major players in research funding: the government, foundations and the private sector, which tend to focus on seasoned scientists.  FundScience identifies itself alongside these groups but provides an unconventional source of funding by drawing on the growing online giving market as well as social networking.

FundScience has discovered a market that is excluded by the current funding process: young researchers needing small amounts of funding to initiate research projects and create the data necessary for accessing larger and more sustainable forms of funding. By communicating these funding opportunities to the general public in an accessible fashion FundScience can help these young researchers generate the funds necessary to get their research started. By providing opportunities for these researchers at an earlier stage in their career, FundScience can lower the average age of researchers receiving large funding grants, provide money for training, and get young researchers trained for the competitive grant writing environment. It aims to educate the public about science and the research process, from grant writing to funding, all the way to the results, enabling everyone to be a part of scientific discovery. FundScience will create an ecosystem for scientists to collaborate with each other and general public.

FundScience has engaged scientists from various fields to leverage the well trusted peer review process to vet submitted projects prior to public review. For projects determined as viable by peer review FundScience will provide a platform to enable active and open communication between the researchers and members of the community  in order to engage the public in the details as well as enable these projects to receive donations. FundScience provides additional resources by publishing general interest science articles on its blog and is in the process of securing free access to tools to assist scientists in collecting and processing data.

Later this year FundScience will put out its first open call for projects.

FundScience has been established and managed by two former Carnegie Mellon roommates, David Vitrant and Mark Friedgan.  In the first couple of months of the organization’s existence it captured the attention of many publications and was featured in Science,  The Scientist, and was picked up by several blogs.  Mark’s philosophy of leveraging open technologies to drive success in an online business can also be found in his recent interview with Forbes.com.