Allen Institute Lands $152M Grant to Scale Team-Based Open Science

The Allen Institute has raised $152,000,000. The Allen Institute’s mission is to unlock the complexities of bioscience and advance our knowledge to improve human health. Using an open science, multi-scale, team approach, the institute focuses on accelerating foundational research, developing standards and models, and cultivating new ideas to make a broad, transformational impact on science. Founded by philanthropist Paul G. Allen, the organization is a recognized leader in large-scale, open science research and comprises the Allen Institute for Brain Science, the Allen Institute for Cell Science, the Allen Institute for Immunology and The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group. The institute emphasizes team science and is committed to increasing diversity across its teams. The size of the funding infusion is significant for an organization that operates at scale and prioritizes shared resources, long-term datasets and collaborative research. Large, coordinated scientific efforts generally require multi-year support to maintain infrastructure, sustain staff-led programs and enable data production and curation that other researchers can reuse. In that context, the $152,000,000 bolsters the Allen Institute’s capacity to continue work that underpins broad scientific research rather than short-term, single-project outputs. Specific allocations for the funds have not been detailed publicly. Based on the institute’s stated priorities, the resources are positioned to support core activities such as accelerating foundational research, developing standards and models, cultivating new ideas, sustaining open science platforms and enabling multi-disciplinary team projects. The funding is also consistent with efforts to broaden participation in research by supporting programs that enhance diversity of perspectives within teams. Looking ahead, the funding should provide the Allen Institute with increased stability to pursue its multi-scale research agenda and to maintain and expand the open-science resources that many in the biomedical research community rely on.