Supports bold, creative faculty pursuing high-risk, cross-disciplinary research that represents a clear and adventurous departure from their prior work.
The Schmidt Science Polymaths Program supports recently tenured faculty with extraordinary track records and bold, creative visions for exploring entirely new lines of research that are clearly distinct from their prior work. These grants are designed for “polymath” researchers, those who cross disciplinary boundaries and apply insights in unconventional ways, to pursue high-risk, underexplored ideas unlikely to receive traditional funding.
The program invests in individuals, not specific projects, and seeks candidates who are intensely creative, willing to take adventurous leaps, and capable of generating transformative breakthroughs. Successful nominees are not simply excellent scientists—they exhibit high-variance thinking, a strong desire to pivot into new research domains, and the courage to test “big if true” ideas. Proposals should reflect future research directions and describe the kinds of questions they want to explore if traditional constraints were removed.
