J-PAL North America (J-PAL NA), established in 2013 with Sloan support, is a regional branch of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, a global network of scholars who employ randomized control trials (RCTs) to evaluate policy interventions. In the decade since its founding, J-PAL NA has tested hundreds of interventions to improve the lives of low-income Americans and make government work better for all. Researchers associated with J-PAL NA have, for example, used RCTs to investigate the causes and consequences of discrimination, revealing potential levers for reducing racial disparities in settings such as healthcare delivery, education, and the criminal justice system. More such work is needed, though, as federal, state, and local governments are demanding rigorous evidence on how to increase racial equity through their programs, services, and budgetary decisions. J-PAL NA proposes to expand its infrastructure to support more RCTs on racial equity under the guidance of its newly appointed Racial Equity Advisory Committee. In addition to helping revise the organization’s project selection criteria and develop new resources to empower researchers with early-stage projects to apply for support, the Committee will publish a cross-disciplinary literature review that identifies theoretically grounded interventions in need of rigorous testing.  Examples include RCTs that explore the drivers of and solutions to structural racism as well as RCTs that examine ways to inspire behaviors that improve racial equity among groups holding power. Concurrently, J-PAL NA will launch its first targeted initiative for RCTs on racial equity, disseminating the call for proposals broadly and purposefully to increase the diversity of applicants.  It will publish guidance on new application requirements – for example, providing overviews of stratification economics and theories of race and discrimination.  They will also offer researchers skills-building sessions on proposal writing and on the practicalities of running a rigorous field test.

Due to global challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions, and geopolitical tensions, the United States is once again adopting explicit industrial strategies.  This follows a long period where free-market policies were primarily favored instead. With the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Commerce Department, and other federal agencies are receiving billions of dollars to support the nation’s competitiveness in critical industry sectors and seeking academic expertise to help them spend it wisely. Columbia University’s Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD) was launched in 2000 by Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz. It is a global network of economists, political scientists, and research centers whose mission is to produce high-quality research and translate it into practical guidance for policymakers.  The IPD now has specific plans to establish a high-profile program for novel research on industrial strategy. One prominent IPD expert is Co-PI Eric Verhoogen, who is evaluating the impacts of different types of industrial strategy – to incentivize product innovation; to increase exports; to improve the allocation of government grants for startups; and to encourage the adoption of energy efficient technologies – through ongoing large-scale experiments . Another is Co-PI Martin Guzman, the former Minister of Economy in Argentina, who serves as IPD Co-President alongside Stiglitz.  Together, Stiglitz, Verhoogen, and Guzman will run an academic program to answer foundational questions about why, when, and how to use industrial strategy. Other major grant activities include two international conferences as well as training new experts in this previously neglected field.

Though there are significant resources available in the New York City public education system for educational enrichment activities like field trips, curricular supplements, and after-school programs, there is no comprehensive source of information on available options, and principals and teachers often must rely on personal relationships and word of mouth to discover appropriate opportunities. Moreover, when schools do find an educational enrichment provider they have interest in partnering with, these organizations are often unprepared for the bureaucratic processes necessary for accessing city funds, like procurement paperwork or getting background clearances. The NYC STEM Education Network (“the Network”) supports the community of STEM learning providers across the five boroughs. Hosted by ExpandED Schools, an intermediary nonprofit organization that delivers full-scale learning and development opportunities to students and educators throughout New York City public schools, the Network brings together over 150 city agencies, schools, afterschool programs, youth-serving organizations, science museums, universities, public and private funders, and intermediaries with an interest in STEM. The Network hosts regular community convenings to spark new ideas, deepen partnerships, and collaborate on ways to serve overlapping communities or increase their reach. The Network hosts district-level outreach and “speed-dating” events to introduce schools to a wide range of local after-school STEM providers and provides micro-grants of up to $5,000 to support initial school / STEM provider partnerships. Grant funds will allow the Network to continue and scale up these activities over the next two years, targeting six NYC school districts that most lack STEM enrichment opportunities, supporting an estimated 5,000 underserved NYC public school students. In addition, they will continue to run technical workshops for Network members on how to navigate NYC policies and processes, and generally support the growing community of STEM learning providers in the City.

Recent federal policy has led to the establishment and reinvigoration of many agencies and programs devoted to spurring the development and commercialization of clean energy technologies. Examples include the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, tax credits provided through the U.S. Treasury, the Loan Programs Office, and the Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy. This grant funds a project led by Jonas Meckling at the University of California, Berkeley and Laura Diaz Anadon at the University of Cambridge to comprehensively identify these programs, document the strategies they employ, and study their impact on energy technology commercialization outcomes. Various methodological approaches will be brought to bear on these questions. First, the research team, will collect qualitative data about the institutional characteristics and functions of these programs, drawing on document reviews, interviews with key stakeholders, and other sources of information. They will then use this initial analysis to identify different institutional design features that warrant further quantitative study. In the second phase, the team will analyze energy technology commercialization by examining two databases that track patenting, investments, and other outcomes. Finally, the team will produce an analysis of a select subset of institutions through comparative, in-depth case studies that detail how these public sector organizations operate and function. The team’s political economy lens will allow the research to go beyond mere funding levels to assess a fuller range of the market-shaping impacts these institutions have in the clean energy ecosystem, such as helping to prioritize clean energy technology development goals, de-risk future investment, and facilitate learning within and across industries.

Each year SFFILM awards two feature film prizes to recognize excellence in science-themed filmmaking: the $20K Sloan Science in Cinema Prize which is awarded in December in advance of the Academy Awards; and a second, Science on Screen award, given out at its April film festival, which includes screenings and panels with scientists.  SFFILM also supports two screenwriters a year with a fellowship that includes a cash award, residency and mentorship by filmmakers and scientists. SFFILM also compiles an annual list of the ten best discoveries in science and gives a prize to two filmmakers to develop one discovery into a screenplay.

Launched by the National Academy of Sciences in 2008 with Sloan support, the Science and Entertainment Exchange (the Exchange), is an ongoing project to increase the quality of scientific content in American film and television through providing directors, producers, and other Hollywood executives with access to high quality consulting by real working scientists and researchers. Providing more than 250 consultations a year, the Exchange works to ensure accuracy when science is used in film and television, seeds new ideas within Hollywood by exposing creative and industry professionals to new scientific content, and acts as a well of professional advice across a wide range of scientific topics. This grant provides support for the Exchange for a period of three years and includes funds to continue the Exchange’s core work of providing science consultations, funds to expand and diversify the Exchange’s roster of science consultants, and funds for a series of in-person and online events showcasing women and Black, Indigenous and Latine scientists and engineers. 

The Coolidge Corner Theatre is an independent cinema in Brookline, Massachusetts specializing in international, documentary, animated, and independent film selections. Since 2008, the Coolidge has been the Foundation’s partner for Sloan Science on Screen, a nationwide program to support independent cinemas — spread across 44 states and Washington DC — that invite scientific experts to screenings of popular or cult classic films to discuss with audiences the scientific or technological themes or issues the film raises. The series offers an unexpected and informative entree into the relationship between science and film, showing that any film can lend itself to intelligent analysis, as well as fun, when viewed through a scientific or technological lens. Sloan support will allow Coolidge to make grants to 70 participating theatres, bringing the total number of independent cinema houses that have participated in Science on Screen to more than 110.

The Sundance Institute hosts the Sundance Film Festival, the largest and most prestigious showcase of independent cinema in the U.S. First held in 1978, the festival remains the first choice for both emerging and established independent filmmakers to premiere their work and offers an unrivaled venue to showcase innovative filmmaking at the intersection of science and cinema. This grant supports a suite of awards and activities each year to celebrate and promote science-themed filmmaking and that have resulted in a widely recognized and fruitful 20-year partnership: the Sloan Commissioning Grant; the Sloan Episodic Fellowship; the Sloan Development Fellowship; the annual Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize (one of only six juried prizes at the Festival); a high-profile panel discussion with scientists and filmmakers; and a reception celebrating the Sloan winners at the Festival.

Understanding how matter complexifies, ultimately towards life, is a longstanding challenge embraced by the Matter-to-Life program. Since life as we know it is primarily chemistry, the challenge amounts to understanding how complexity and function can emerge and grow in a complicated chemical network. This grant supports Leroy Cronin, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow, to deploy a systems chemistry approach to addressing this question. Cronin will leverage state-of-the-art robotics to enable long-term chemical evolution experiments that exploit a new parameter that quantifies molecular complexity that is both experimentally accessible and embedded within a larger theoretical framework. Cronin plans to use that framework to nudge a chemical system towards ever-increasing complexity. Selection as a concept is most commonly deployed within Darwinian evolution, where natural selection refers to the preferential survival of individuals with certain genetic traits by means of natural controlling factors. Here Professor Cronin proposes to observe selection within a chemical system, and in this context, selection refers to the preferential survival of molecules with certain traits by means of natural controlling factors (the local environment). Cronin is primarily interested in one trait: complexity. Professor Cronin will use a measure of molecular complexity called the “assembly index.” The assembly index of a molecule is, in essence, equal to the number of ‘steps’ (chemical bonds) needed to construct the molecule using system-dependent basic building blocks (atoms or molecules).  Cronin has demonstrated that assembly index is well-correlated to three relatively-easy-to-perform types of measurements: mass spectrometry, IR spectroscopy, and NMR spectroscopy. The research team will run recursive chemistry experiments that rely on automated measurements to determine which molecules are present and adjust conditions to nudge a system towards a ‘selection regime’ where new forms of complexity are generated. The adjustable conditions include things like temperature (heating & cooling), evaporation and rehydration, how long a mixture is stirred, the duration of an experimental cycle, solution pH, whether various minerals are added, and whether or not an electrical discharge is applied. Cronin expects that a single experiment (a series of cycles) will run continuously for several hundred cycles, corresponding to several weeks or months. Over that time, there are four types of complex molecules / structures that the researchers will seek to detect: self-reproducing molecules and autocatalytic sets; production of high assembly index molecules; formation of primitive sequence polymers; and emergence of microscopic containers.

Training the next generation of researchers is an essential component of any healthy academic field. Here William Bialek and Joshua Shaevitz, Professors of Physics at Princeton University and Co-Directors of the Center for the Physics of Biological Function, request three years of support for a Center Fellow pursuing physics-of-life research. This prestigious postdoctoral fellowship will offer a young researcher both intellectual freedom and a support structure, and grant funds would support either a theorist or an experimentalist. A fellowship offering intellectual freedom to an early-career scholar is typically challenging to fund through federal agencies focused on supporting specific projects, despite the fact that this freedom can play an important role in establishing a young scientist as an independent researcher. The Center for the Physics of Biological Function is a partnership between Princeton and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York; a partnership anchored by a core community of sixteen CUNY/Princeton faculty. The Center focuses on science at the interface of physics and biology with the goal of creating ‘a physicist’s understanding of living systems: a physics of biological function that connects the myriad details of life, across all scales, to fundamental and universal physical principles.’ Center Fellows will be offered a competitive salary, travel funds, and independence to select a compelling line of research. The Center Fellow is not obligated to any particular faculty member, instead the Center exposes young physicists to problems posed by a wide range of living systems and gives them ‘considerable freedom to explore these problems, crossing boundaries among topics that would be in separate groups or departments at most institutions.’ This freedom is balanced by a support system as the Fellow is held accountable to formulating a feasible plan by interacting with senior Center faculty, and there’s a community of Fellows that provide peer advice and guidance.