The Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi)
Mission
To catalyze, support, and disseminate research on questions at the foundations of physics and cosmology, particularly new frontiers and innovative ideas integral to a deep understanding of reality but unlikely to be supported by conventional funding sources.
Goals
FQXi has five goals:
- To expand the purview of scientific inquiry to include scientific disciplines fundamental to a deep understanding of reality, but which are currently largely unsupported by conventional grant sources
- To redress incrementalism in research programming by establishing or expanding new "islands" of understanding via flexible funding of high-risk, high-reward research in these areas
- To forge and maintain useful collaborations between researchers working on foundational questions in physics, cosmology, and related fields
- To provide the public with a deeper understanding of known and future discoveries in these areas, and their potential implications for our worldview
- To create a logistically, intellectually, and financially self-sustaining independent Institute to accomplish these goals during and beyond the initial four year program beginning in 2006, thereby pioneering a new model of philanthropically-funded scientific research
FQXi therefore aims to support research that is both foundational (with potentially significant and broad implications for our understanding of the deep or "ultimate" nature of reality) and unconventional (enabling research that, because of its speculative, non-mainstream, or high-risk nature, would otherwise go unperformed due to lack of funding).
Get Involved!
FQXi welcomes the participation of scientists, laypeople, and philanthropists. Find out more here!
