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Matchmaker, find me a grant (nature.com)
67 points by hoffmannesque on Dec 20, 2016 | hide | past | favorite | 13 comments



> At present, Instrumentl covers non-human biology (including zoology, botany and marine science), ecology, evolution, agriculture, soil science, Earth science, palaeontology and environmental science.

No computer science yet :/ Finding grants and applying truly is a time sink.

Leo Szilard predicted it years ago:

> “but then why not do something about the retardation of scientific progress?”

> “That I would very much like to do,” Mark Gable said, “but how do I go about it?”

> “Well,” I said, “I think that shouldn’t be very difficult. As a matter of fact, I think it would be quite easy. You could set up a foundation, with an annual endowment of thirty million dollars. Research workers in need of funds could apply for grants, if they could mail out a convincing case. Have ten committees, each committee, each composed of twelve scientists, appointed to pass on these applications. Take the most active scientists out of the laboratory and make them members of these committees. And the very best men in the field should be appointed as chairman at salaries of fifty thousand dollars each. Also have about twenty prizes of one hundred thousand dollars each for the best scientific papers of the year. This is just about all you would have to do.


Where did Szilard write this? If you had a reference, I'd be grateful.

Research funding was easier a century ago: https://dirnagl.com/2014/01/14/otto-warburgs-research-grant/



We went through YC with Instrumentl and they are a phenomenal team.

Also, a great example of solving a real, impactful problem. Why someone would invest in the thirteenth food delivery app over something to help science do science is beyond me.


Any know of a site like this that is targeted at non-profits?


Have to do a bit more of the work yourself but the non-profit I run uses https://grantstation.com

That having been said, we haven't yet been too successful with the opportunities we've found on there but it has given us some leads.


There's Foundation Directory Online [1]. It's super-expensive, but you can use it for free at a lot of libraries, including in San Francisco. The group that runs it, the Foundation Center, also runs seminars on how to run a non-profit and raise funds, and they have a branch in SF too.

[1] http://foundationcenter.org/find-funding


Instrumentl is used pretty heavily by nonprofits, however nonprofits working in the fields of science education and environment (at the moment). What fields are you working in?


Education these days (specifically Tribal Community College and Vocation)


It is not said there on their website. Is it for the US-only researchers?


We're not restricted by the researcher's location or their citizenship (many of our users are international) but we're focused on aggregating funders based in the US.


So you do not list opportunities presented in Horison 2020 and other EU research frameworks, right?


We do list some, but I wouldn't call us comprehensive yet :)




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