Moore Inventor Fellows Program

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Website Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s Moore Inventor Fellows Program seeks to identify outstanding inventors and innovators who create new tools and technologies with a high potential to accelerate progress in the foundation’s areas of interest: scientific discovery, environmental conservation and patient care.

Program Funding Priorities

The scope of this call is intentionally wide: proposed projects do not need to fall within Moore’s current funding priorities, but should be broadly within the program areas of foundation interest (science, environmental conservation and patient care). The exception is for nominees proposing ideas and inventions that target patient care, where Moore seeks overlap with their current emphasis on improving the experience and outcomes of patients, including solutions in the areas of diagnostic excellence, medication safety in the community and community-based serious illness care. Moore aims to support inventions at an early stage that could lead to proof-of-concept work on an invention or advance an existing prototype that tackles an important problem. The foundation seeks innovations with the promise of making a long-lasting impact by addressing underlying problems in their field, but a clear path toward commercialization is not a requirement. Moore is not interested in supporting projects that are already at a stage where significant venture capital is available, however most of our successful applicants are already in the process of seeking a patent for their invention.

Program Budget

The foundation anticipates investing $34 million to support a total of 50 Moore Fellows.  The first five of these Fellows awards were granted in 2016, including UCI’s own Shane Ardo., Chang Liu received a Fellows award in 2019.

Each fellow will receive funding for three years at a level of $200,000 per year from the Moore Foundation. In addition to funds for the Fellow, the foundation will provide the host institution with $25,000 each year to cover costs associated with administering the grant award, resulting in a total three-year award amount of $675,000. Host institutions  also make a contribution of $50,000 in annual direct support of the inventor’s work (i.e. there is mandatory cost share, which will be coordinated by the UCI Office of Research).

Eligibility

Candidates must be within ten years of receiving an advanced terminal degree in their field (M.S., Ph.D. or M.D.). They can be tenure-track faculty, teaching faculty, research scientists, post-docs or other full-time affiliates of the university.

Internal Application Process

UCI may submit only two nominations for this award opportunity. Therefore, interested applicants (or those nominating others) are asked to submit a preliminary application to the Office of Research (via UCI Review) with the following information by September 16, 2021:

  • Up to 2-page overview of the proposed invention/innovation, which should include the following subsections (1 inch margins and New Times Roman 12 pt. font):
    1. Description of Invention
    2. Statement on Importance and Potential Impact to science, environmental conservation or patient care and experience
    3. Stage of Invention
    4. Current Funding
    5. Feasibility
    6. Approach for Measuring Progress
      (Citations/references, if required, may be on additional pages)
  • A 2-page Biosketch (personal statement should include why the PI is the best person to pursue this invention), or abbreviated CV.

Following receipt of the internal applications, an ad hoc committee will be convened to review the proposals.  The selected candidate will be notified in time to meet the November 16th deadline for institutional nominations (the nominees’ application packets are due by December 14th). Following this first deadline, the Moore Foundation will select approximately 10% of nominations to submit for a second round of review. Selected finalists will be asked to provide additional information and present to Moore’s panel of advisors before making recommendations to the foundation management for the five 2022 fellowships.

For more information about the program and specific guidelines, please visit https://www.moore.org/docs/default-source/moore-inventor-fellows/moore-inventor-fellows-guidelines.pdf

The following link contains the list of 2020 Awardees: https://www.moore.org/article-detail?newsUrlName=gordon-and-betty-moore-foundation-announces-2020-moore-inventor-fellows.

Questions about our internal campus review process may be directed to
Michael Gallo at magallo@uci.edu. Please contact Marianne Smith in Corporate and Foundation Relations for assistance with your internal application (mrsmith1@uci.edu).

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