The Scope
The Navigation Fund invites a 2-page letter of intent for open science infrastructure and tools that leverage AI to make science more transparent, efficient, and trustworthy.
We are interested in funding projects that:
- Apply AI in practical ways to improve scientific workflows, metadata enrichment, data reuse, knowledge discovery, or research processes.
- Develop open and extensible benchmarks for open science AI workflows
- Can serve a well-defined audience within the scientific community that is ready to adopt and benefit from the solution
- Demonstrate the potential to accelerate research and address pressing challenges in scientific practices
- Embody open science principles, delivering benefits to the broader research ecosystem
- Partnership with an existing entity such as a data repository, scientific society, or other widely used resource (e.g. PubMed) would be a bonus
What's out of scope
- AI for the development and maintenance of open source research software
- AI for research evaluation, promotion, tenure (RPT)
We prioritize proposals that strengthen transparency and trust in science through the ethical use of AI. We're especially interested in AI tools that augment human capabilities, such as applications that support peer review, improve metadata quality, aid knowledge discovery, or streamline information flow.
We value thoughtful development strategies that prototype quickly, whether using commercial tools or open infrastructure, as long as there is a clear and credible path toward implementation on open and transparent foundations, such as open-source models, open datasets, or open standards.
We welcome proposals across disciplines including biology, chemistry, physics, materials science, and related fields where AI-powered infrastructure can reduce friction and enhance collaboration in the scientific process.
With your consent, we may also share your proposal with other private funders to increase the chances of your work receiving funding.
What to Submit in the LOI
Please include the following in your LOI:
- Executive Summary
- A clear and concise title
- Information about the project lead(s) and team
- The core value proposition and how your work will advance open science
- Critical Challenges
- The hardest and most urgent challenge your project must solve first
- Your approach to addressing this challenge
- Community Impact
- The communities your work will support
- How it will specifically help them
- Potential risks and mitigation strategies
- Current Progress and Context
- Prototypes or progress achieved so far
- Links to related or existing work in this space
- Funding Request
- Rough estimate of total funding requested (2-3 sentences at most)
Funding Scale
Our program offers two tiers of funding support:
- Exploratory Grants: $50,000 - $100,000 for early-stage, high-risk/high-reward ideas (6-12 months), with potential for renewal
- Development Grants: $100,000 - $500,000 for projects with preliminary results that show promise (1-2 years), with potential for renewal
Grants may include access to computational resources, mentorship from leaders in AI and science, and opportunities to join our community events and workshops. We aim to make fast decisions and send invitations for full proposals within 2 to 3 weeks after the deadline. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
Eligibility Criteria
Applicants must meet the following minimum requirements:
- Affiliation with an accredited research institution, university, nonprofit organization, fiscal sponsor, or, in limited circumstances, companies and other organization types
- Project leaders must have demonstrable expertise in their scientific domain or in AI development
- Project teams must include both AI expertise and domain science expertise (either within one person, across a team, or through a partnership)
- Commitment to making the work open and widely available
- Projects must be ready to start as soon as possible