The Charles E. Kaufman Foundation, a supporting organization of The Pittsburgh Foundation, has awarded eight grants totaling $1.8 million to support research at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, The Pennsylvania State University, Swarthmore College and University of Pennsylvania.
The Kaufman Foundation grants to institutes of higher learning in Pennsylvania for scientists pursuing research that explores their field’s essential questions and/or crosses disciplinary boundaries.
Grants are awarded in two categories: grants to New Investigators and grants for New Initiatives. Grants in the New Investigator grant category are generally awarded to scientists transitioning to independent appointments and those newly pursuing independent research. The grant empowers scientists at the beginning of their careers as they seek to make a mark in their fields. New Initiatives Grants are awarded to teams reexamining questions beyond the capacity of any one individual researcher. Fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, those grants require that each researcher have a novel approach to the topic in question. Both categories support work in either the fundamental principles of the researchers’ field or interdisciplinary research examining the interaction and overlap of two or more fields.