5 minSociety
Philanthropy Group Urges Investment in Early-Career Scientists, Not Just Projects
A leading science philanthropist argues that unrestricted funding for young researchers produces outsized returns, citing awardees who have founded more than 50 companies worth over $40 billion combined.
Scientific breakthroughs rarely arrive on schedule. They emerge from hunches, false starts and the kind of patient, curiosity-driven work that grant applications are poorly designed to capture. That is the central argument advanced by a prominent science philanthropist, who contends that society celebrates the finished discovery while neglecting the uncertain process — and the people — that made it possible.
The problem is most acute for early-career scientists, who are typically at their most creative and productive but struggle to secure the financial support needed to reach their full potential. Public bodies and universities must decide which projects to back before they know where the ideas will lead, and with many talented researchers competing for finite resources, promising work is lost. The pressure on young scientists is not simply to demonstrate progress, but to produce science that can be articulated succinctly in a grant application, attached to a clear set of deliverables and defended as a sensible investment.
Something is lost when funding focuses too narrowly on what can be fully justified in advance. Not every research grant is funded, and difficult choices must be made even in the best funding environments. But the nature of the funding matters, and philanthropy has a role in broadening support for young scientists. Unrestricted funding, the argument goes, is an investment in the person rather than the project. It recognizes talent, ideas, judgment, curiosity and long-term potential. The money can buy new equipment, hire a staff member or simply pursue a new line of inquiry that might otherwise be too abstract for a regular grant application.
The freedom such funding provides extends beyond the laboratory. It can relieve anxiety over rent, allow for a much-needed family vacation or reduce financial pressure enough to give great thinkers more time to think about their science. This is the principle behind the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists, which provide grants ranging from $15,000 to $250,000 — the largest such prizes awarded to early-career scientists. Crucially, no conditions are attached; awardees decide how and where the money can make the greatest difference.
The results are measurable. Recipients of the award have created more than 50 companies with a combined value exceeding $40 billion. Among them are Amprius, which develops high-energy-density lithium-ion batteries; Editas Medicine, a gene-editing company; and Revolution Medicines, which develops new treatments for cancer. Commercial return, however, is not the only measure of success. So is a breakthrough that fundamentally changes how the world is understood, or a finding that opens an entirely new field of discovery.
The history of science offers ample evidence that narrow inquiries can lead somewhere unexpected. Graphene, now used in medical equipment, electronics, batteries and tennis racquets, was born out of tangential research at the University of Manchester. What begins as a focused question invariably raises new ones, opening dozens of avenues of investigation, each capable of taking the research in an entirely new direction. The pursuit of science is less a journey toward a destination than an evolving exercise in enlightened exploration.
Prizes such as the Nobel are a magnificent celebration of transformative science, but by design most are awarded decades after the breakthrough being recognized. Scientists, meanwhile, are most productive early in their careers, when support is hardest to obtain. Philanthropy alone can never substitute for institutional or government funding, but it can play a vital role in driving discovery and human progress by creating the conditions for greater risk-taking, unexpected advances and the retention of exceptional scientific talent.
Unrestricted funding, in this view, is not simply the awarding of money. It is the gift of freedom to explore, experiment and persevere — the freedom to ask questions without knowing where the answers might lead, which is the very essence of science.
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