Giving Compass' Take:

• Bob Grant argues that as the Trump administration withdraws support for environmental research, philanthropy is needed to fill the gap in research funding. 

• What research areas should funders prioritize? What existing research needs a boost? 

• Learn how to find and fund scientific research. 

Private granting sources are likely to only become more important as basic research continues to face a rocky federal funding environment. The plateauing budgets and stagnant granting success rates seen at US federal science organizations over the past several years have been thrown into even starker relief by the Trump administration’s seeming lack of enthusiasm for funding basic research.

I think philanthropy is more important than ever. It’s most important for setting an example for the Congress, for showing the Congress that it’s important to take risks and to take a long-term view when you’re talking about science, and not to look [only] for short-term applications.

As institutions and researchers weather what Harvard’s McCullough calls “a period of ‘capital-U’ uncertainty,” funding for foundational and basic research becomes a rising concern.

While philanthropic dollars are extremely unlikely to ever take over the primary funding role of federal budget allocations to US science agencies, Kastner says he is hopeful that private funders might demonstrate some of the benefits of a new model for supporting science.

Read the full article on private funding for science by Bob Grant at The Scientist Magazine.