Moore Inventor Fellows

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s Moore Inventor Fellows Program seeks to identify outstanding inventors and innovators who harness science and technology to enhance the conduct of scientific research, strengthen environmental conservation, or improve the experience and outcomes of 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.

Program Budget

The foundation anticipates investing $34 million to support a total of 50 Moore Fellows over 10 years. The first fellows were awarded in 2016 including UCI’s own Shane Ardo (Chemistry).  Chang Liu (Biomedical Engineering) received this 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 will be required to make a contribution of $50,000 in annual direct support of the inventor’s work (i.e., mandatory cost share) which has been arranged with the Office of Research and Beall Applied Innovation.

Eligibility

Candidates must be within ten years of receiving the advanced terminal degree in their field (M.S., Ph.D. or M.D. received on or after 2014). They can be tenure-line 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 25^th:

• Two-page statement of invention, which should include:
  • Opening paragraph describing an overview of the invention, the problem it seeks to address and its potential impact with no jargon.
  • The remainder should include (in any order):
    • Description of invention (more detailed)
    • Potential Impact
    • Stage of invention
    • Current Funding
    • Feasibility/Risks/Measuring Progress (Approach to measuring success over the 3-year fellowship)
    • Importance to Foundation’s focus areas (Science, Patient Care, or Environmental Conservation)

(Citations/references, if required, may be on additional pages)

• A 2-page Biosketch 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 14, 2023, deadline for institutional nominations (the nominees’ application packets are due by December 13^th). 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 2024 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