The Office of Foundation Relations is pleased to share two open calls for funding from Schmidt Sciences.
- UCSC Contact: Samantha Forde | forde@ucsc.edu
- Funder: Schmidt Sciences
- Opportunity: (1) 2026 AI for Actionable Matter Modelling, (2) 2026 Unconventional Compute
- Deadline: April 30, 2026, 11:59pm PT
Overview
- AI for Actionable Matter Modelling
Informational Webinar: March 12, 2026, 8-9am PT. Register, or April 7, 2026, 1-2pm PT Register
Fields that manipulate matter—chemistry, materials science, biology—face a persistent gulf between computational models and the lab bench. AI may now help close this gap—not only by modeling non-idealities more accurately at a single scale, but by bridging scales that have historically required separate communities, codes, and assumptions. Schmidt Sciences is interested in methods that improve fidelity within a single scale and methods that connect scales that today are treated in isolation.
This RFP seeks proposals for AI-driven methods that can reliably predict properties governed by defects, interfaces, disorder, and multi-scale dynamics—including methods that bridge length and time scales that conventional simulation cannot connect—for any technologically relevant material or molecule.
Submissions from ongoing efforts where additional resources would enable a step-change in ambition are particularly encouraged. Teams with existing momentum—preliminary data, assembled collaborations between computationalists and experimentalists, validated workflows—are especially welcome.
Please see the list of FAQs for the AI for Actionable Matter Modelling RFP .
Award Amount & Terms
- Track I: Up to $100,000 (6 – 12 months); Track II: $100,000 – $500,000 (12 – 18 months)
- Details on funding tracks can be found in the RFP
- 10-15 awards
- Indirect cost up to 10%
Overview
2. 2026 Unconventional Compute
Informational Webinar: March 12, 2026, 7-8am PT. Register here and April 7, 2026, 12-1pm PT. Register here
Schmidt Sciences seeks to fund research that can catalyze hardware fundamentally different from today’s CPU–GPU paradigm, and the training/inference methods co-designed to operate under the constraints imposed by such hardware: low numerical precision, device noise, drift, non-idealities etc. The foundation is looking for proposals grounded in the creation of hardware that will solve specific, well-defined technological problems where conventional compute underperforms.
Applications from teams with existing hardware, preliminary data, or demonstrated capabilities where additional resources would help drive towards more ambitious work are particularly encouraged.
Award Amount & Terms
- Track I: $50,000 – $150,000 (6 – 12 months); Track II: $150,000 – $750,000 (12 – 18 months)
- Details on the funding tracks can be found in the RFP
- 15-25 awards
- Indirect cost up to 10%
Please see the list of FAQs for the Unconventional Compute RFP.
Timeline
- April 30, 2026 Proposal deadline
- Summer 2026 Notification
Special Instructions
Please notify the Office of Foundation Relations if you are interested in applying to this opportunity and if you would like support in developing your proposal (fr@ucsc.edu). Please submit a proposal intake form prior to UCSC’s internal Institutional Deadlines. For additional support developing your proposal, you can send a request to the Office of Research Development, resdev@ucsc.edu.
Call Sent: March 5, 2026
The Office of Foundation Relations is a unit of University Advancement. The FR team creates and maintains mutually beneficial, long-term relationships with private organizations, matching grant initiatives with educational and research programs and centers. FR supports faculty and staff to identify and approach these and other private foundations for funding, to assist in strategic positioning of the grant application, and to facilitate funder campus visits. For a list of recent funding opportunities, please visit the FR website. FR Calls for Funding