Science

Overview

The Foundation’s Science program funds basic research and supporting activities in the areas of astronomy and cosmology, fundamental physics, climate change science, and unlocking pathways to the physical sciences. The program’s core strategy seeks out innovative, leading-edge research at a scale where Foundation support can make a difference—for example, by enabling research that falls between siloed fields or communities, providing rapid response dollars for timely projects, filling critical gaps in funding, or supporting promising early-stage research that is deemed too exploratory or risky for other funders, but which demonstrates potential for high-impact results.

To achieve its strategy, the Foundation’s Science program invests in:

• Enhancing and accelerating new scientific discoveries that illuminate basic understanding of the universe and its celestial objects and processes.
• Enabling novel experimental and theoretical investigations of the fundamental forces and particles that govern all matter, energy, and structure in the universe.
• Enabling research that provides the scientific foundation for understanding global climate change and its ramifications for mankind.
• Strengthening physical sciences research in the United States by broadening the pool of talented individuals who enter, stay, and thrive in the fields of astronomy and cosmology, fundamental physics, and climate change science.