The Institute for Venture Science (IVS), a Seattle-based non-profit organisation, today announced the opening of its first round of pre-proposal competition for scientific grants.
The IVS funds promising ideas that challenge conventional scientific thinking. The organization seeks to identify ideas with the highest potential to replace paradigms that have outlived their usefulness. All areas of natural science are considered. Dr. Gerald Pollack, the Executive Director of the Institute commented, “We do not fund technology development, but only fundamental science — the more fundamental, the better. We are seeking proposals with the highest capacity to shake the earth.”
A key aspect of the IVS plan is to fund multiple laboratories worldwide that follow the same theme. That approach helps build a critical mass, assuring that promising new paradigms cannot be easily ignored. Challengers will have a fighting chance to gain traction. This approach is expected to facilitate major breakthroughs, possibly even scientific revolutions.
Pre-proposal instructions are available at: http://www.theinstituteforventurescience.net/#!preproposal/cifs.
Further information on the Institute can be obtained by visiting www.IVSCI.org or by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Gerald Pollack received his PhD in biomedical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968. He then joined the University of Washington faculty and is now a professor of Bioengineering. He is also Founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal, WATER, convener of the Annual Conference on the Physics, Chemistry and Biology of Water, and Executive Director of the Institute for Venture Science.
His interests have ranged broadly, from biological motion and cell biology to the interaction of biological surfaces with aqueous solutions. He is the author of several prestigious books, Muscles and Molecules: Uncovering the Principles of Biological Motion; Cells, Gels and the Engines of Life (2001), and his newest book, The Fourth Phase of Water: Beyond Solid, Liquid, and Vapor.
Pollack received an honorary doctorate in 2002 from Ural State University in Ekaterinburg, Russia, and was more recently named an Honorary Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and foreign member and Academician of the Srpska Academy. He received the Biomedical Engineering Society’s Distinguished Lecturer Award in 2002.
Pollack is a Founding Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering and a Fellow of both the American Heart Association and the Biomedical Engineering Society. He received an NIH Director’s Transformative R01 Award. He was the 2012 recipient of the Prigogine Medal for thermodynamics of dissipative systems, and in 2014, he received the Scientific Excellence Award from the World Academy of Neural Therapy, as well as the Society for Scientific Exploration’s Dinsdale Prize. In 2015, he won the Brandlaureate Award, previously bestowed on notables such as Nelson Mandela, Hillary Clinton, and Steve Jobs. In 2016, he was awarded the 1st Emoto Peace Prize.
Wessex Institute