As part of TDAI's yearlong Geometrization of AI research theme, faculty gathered on March 24 for a seminar on private philanthropic funding for AI-focused research. Kristina Markel, Senior Director of Foundation Engagement at Ohio State, introduced two major funders and walked attendees through current and upcoming grant opportunities.

Schmidt Sciences

Founded in 2024 by Eric and Wendy Schmidt, Schmidt Sciences supports groundbreaking and high-risk research across five focus areas, including AI & Advanced Computing. Markel highlighted four active RFPs relevant to Ohio State faculty:

• Science of Trustworthy AI — Up to $5M+ for technical research on understanding and controlling risks from frontier AI systems. Due May 17, 2026.
• Unconventional Compute — $50k–$750k for teams exploring hardware alternatives to GPUs. Due April 30, 2026.
• AI for Actionable Matter Modeling — Up to $500k for AI-driven approaches to predicting material behavior at technologically relevant scales. Due April 30, 2026.
• AI Interpretability — $300k–$1M for methods to detect and steer deceptive behaviors in large language models. Due May 26, 2026.

Ohio State faculty have already secured multiple Schmidt Sciences awards, including a $500,000 grant to Huan Sun, Yu Su, and Zhiqiang Lin for AI safety research, and a $92,364 award to Sachin Kumar for work on LLM safety at inference time.

Coefficient Giving

Formerly Open Philanthropy, Coefficient Giving has directed more than $4 billion in grants since 2014. Its Navigating Transformative AI program funds technical AI safety research, AI governance and policy work, and capacity building to help society prepare for advanced AI. Two programs accept applications on a rolling basis: Capacity Building to Address Risks from Transformative AI and Career Development and Transition for individuals pursuing AI safety careers.

Ohio State faculty have received over $800,000 in Coefficient awards for research on AI generalization failures, unintended agent behaviors, and LLM collusion with monitoring systems.

Resources for Faculty

Markel also demonstrated Scarlet & Grants, Ohio State's internal database of 800+ private funding opportunities managed by Corporate and Foundation Engagement. Faculty interested in pursuing any of these opportunities are encouraged to reach out to Kristina Markel at Markel.8@osu.edu or visit foundationengagement.osu.edu.

Slides can be found here: 

Full video recording of this talk can be found here: