Current programs
We explore candidate ideas to ensure they meet our quality bar, and if they do, coordinate research and other activities to make those ideas a reality.
How we work
We scope
Scoping is where ideas get tested. We take candidate areas (stalled research directions, proposed interventions) and conduct initial research to ensure that it is the right shape for our fund. We consider factors like the number of people and animals affected, whether the technology is at the right level of maturity, who would use the results, and whether a coordinated push would actually make progress.
We run coordinated research programs
Concepts that meet our quality bar become coordinated research programs: time-bound, milestone-driven research initiatives run by a program manager with a budget and the authority to reallocate it. We borrow the tools of the innovation landscape — ARPA-style program design, milestone payments, focused research organizations — and apply them to problems that don’t fit traditional academic funding or commercial investment models.
Approved programs
Approved to launch; final program design in progress.
This program aims to address the multifaceted burdens posed by rodents on humans, while also making rodent management more humane and ecologically friendly. Every year, rodents cause billions of dollars in damage to crops and infrastructure, while posing a zoonotic disease risk as well. At the same time, rodenticides bioaccumulate in the environment, threatening wildlife and causing significant animal suffering. We believe we have a path to solve both problems at once.
Programs in scoping
Our team will conduct scoping research on several of these topics this year.
Welfare indicator development
Extending the feasibility of animal welfare assessment in the wild by developing three to five indicators that work across a large taxonomic category (e.g., all mammals), can be deployed in the field at reasonable cost, and integrate welfare over a meaningful portion of an animal's lifespan (e.g., at least 10%).
Wildlife vaccination
Identifying and developing treatment for a disease that affects significant numbers of wild animals, causes a threat to human health or economic interests, and is ecologically safe to address.
The ecology of bird-window collisions
Understanding the ecological and welfare costs of bird-window collisions, an understudied phenomenon affecting somewhere between hundreds of millions and billions of birds per year in the US alone.
We’re also exploring several other areas as candidates for scoping, including vulture conservation, near-term ecological forecasting, estimating invertebrate populations, and reducing reliance on managed pollinators.
If you’re a scientist with an interest in one of these areas, tell us about your work.