News Summary

• Some of the richest people in history are using charitable donations to explore fresh approaches to funding scientific research.
• Many of the new philanthropists are adopting an engineering mindset, focusing their donations on technological approaches to solving societal problems.
• These donors speak of high-risk, long-term and interdisciplinary research.
• Their goals include finding ways to make research faster and more efficient by encouraging data sharing and speeding up grant approvals.
• But there’s a disparity when you compare how these funders and those in the public sector operate.