This grant provides continued support to a team led by Peter Fox at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to provide computational and data management services to the Deep Carbon Observatory.  Grant funds support the continued operation and development of deepcarbon.net, which is used to manage the project as a whole, coordinate member activities, and disseminate results both within the DCO and with the wider public.  In addition, the RPI team maintains a state-of-the-art computing cluster used to store and analyze data collected by DCO scientists and to run complicated and data-rich model simulations.  Grant funds provide continued support for these activities as well as additional work designed to lay the groundwork for a “deep carbon virtual observatory” that would exist as a continuing legacy after the DCO has completed its decadal research goals. 

Funds from this grant provide two years of continued support to the international secretariat of the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) as it pursues its 10-year mission to transform our understanding of the sources, forms, and properties of deep Earth carbon and its relation to hydrocarbons and the origins of life.  As the governing body of the DCO, the international secretariat coordinates and oversees the activities of the DCO’s four scientific communities, keeps the larger project on track, sets priorities and standards, helps allocate resources, and aids in project fund raising.  Grant funds provide general support for these activities for the next two years.

Funds from this grant provide two years of administrative and operational support for the business and economics desk of the Conversation U.S., an experimental new platform in journalism.  Based on similar efforts already successfully launched in the United Kingdom and Australia, the Conversation U.S. is an experiment in direct journalism, providing a platform where researchers and experts write public-facing news and analysis pieces themselves, published under their own bylines, which are then edited in collaboration with experienced journalists for clarity and objectivity.  Content produced by the Conversation is released to the public free of intellectual property restrictions and it encourages other sites—even “competitor” news sites—to reuse and repurpose its content.  The project represents a promising response to changing economic prospects in the news industry and facilitates more direct communication between researchers and the public.

The ratio of men to women earning undergraduate degrees in economics is three to one.  This grant funds a project by Harvard economist Claudia Goldin to try to understand why.   Over the next four years, Goldin will pursue three interconnected activities.  The first is analysis of administrative data to better understand gender differences in selecting courses and majors.  The second is convening researchers to coordinate similar research efforts by other scholars and to design interventions aimed at testing hypotheses suggested by the data.  And the third is to run a kind of “randomized controlled trial” by matching baseline economics departments with those that receive financial incentives to use an intervention.  These experiments will provide evidence about whether and to what extent departmental interventions can effectively raise the number of women who major in economics, and may suggest ways to effectively address gender imbalances in other fields.

Launched in 2008 by the National Academy of Sciences, the Science & Entertainment Exchange pairs scientists with members of the entertainment industry, giving Hollywood producers, directors, writers, and other filmmaking professionals access to scientific expertise. Through hundreds of film and TV consultations, high-profile events, and “behind-the-scenes” access to scientific venues, the Exchange has successfully worked to enhance and improve the scientific content of many Hollywood productions, from science fiction to action to dramas.  The Exchange has conducted over 800 consultations to date on blockbuster films such as Thor and The Avengers and on TV series such as The Good Wife and The Big Bang Theory. The Exchange works to ensure accuracy when science is used in film, seeds new ideas within the film and television industry, and gives professional science advice.  Funds from this grant provide operating support for The Exchange’s core activities.  Additional funds support the enhancement of The Exchange’s web presence and a planned “signature” networking event to take place in late 2014.

Funds from this grant will allow Film Independent (FIND) to host the 2014 Sloan Film Summit, a major convening of all of the Foundation’s film grantees held every three years, from film schools to film festivals, and from film development to film distribution partners. Supported activities at the summit include screenings of short films produced by Sloan-supported student filmmakers, screenplay readings, scientist-filmmaker panels on a variety of topics related to the incorporation of high-quality science into narrative film, updates on the progress of Sloan-supported projects, and networking events with industry insiders.  In addition to events for participants in the Sloan Film program, the summit will also feature three public-facing events: a full day of screenings of completed Sloan feature films followed by Q&A with the filmmakers, the staged readings of select Sloan-winning screenplays, and a high-profile “conversation” that focuses on science and storytelling.

Funds from this grant support a continuing partnership with Film Independent in its efforts to develop high-quality, science-themed screenplays and support producing teams that can get these films completed.  Grant funds will support a series of incentive awards administered by Film Independent toward this purpose, including a yearly $30,000 award to a producer to develop a science-themed script in FIND’s Producing Lab; a Sloan Fast Track Fellowship to be awarded annually to a producer or producing team and which includes a $20,000 cash grant and participation in the Fast Track film financing market; and an annual $50,000 distribution grant awarded to one exceptional science-themed film a year to incentivize buyers to acquire it for distribution.  Additional grant funds defray the administrative costs of the program and support outreach and publicity efforts aimed at promoting winning projects.

This grant provides one year of continuing support to the Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) for a series of activities designed to develop and spotlight high-quality films and film scripts that explore science as a theme or that feature scientists, mathematicians, or engineers as major characters.  Supported activities include a feature film prize for the best science-themed film submitted, a high-profile reception celebrating the winning film and filmmaker, a panel discussion featuring filmmakers and working scientists, and a screenwriting workshop to develop two science-themed scripts that will result in a staged reading of those scripts with well-known actors during the festival.  HIFF will also continue its intensive three-week filmmaking workshop at Stony Brook and will also host a tastemaker event in New York City in the weeks following the festival to promote the Sloan-winning film among prominent industry and press.