Simons Foundation

The Simons Foundation is an American private foundation established in 1994 by Marilyn and Jim Simons with offices in New York City. As one of the largest charitable organizations in the United States with assets of over $5 billion in 2022, the foundation's mission is to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and basic sciences. The foundation supports science by making grants to individual researchers and their projects. In 2021, Marilyn Simons stepped down as president after 26 years at the helm, and astrophysicist David Spergel was appointed president. In 2016, the foundation launched the Flatiron Institute, its in-house multidisciplinary research institute focused on computational science. The Flatiron Institute hosts centers for computational science in five areas: The foundation makes grants in four program areas: Among other programs, the Simons Foundation funds the Simons Investigators in MPS program which provides a stable base of support for outstanding scientists, enabling them to undertake long-term study of fundamental questions. In 2012 the foundation launched a new funding model, the Simons Collaborations, which brings funded investigators — sometimes from different disciplines — together to work on an important scientific problem. To date, 25 Simons Collaborations have been launched by the foundation's Mathematics and Physical Sciences and Life Sciences divisions and by its neuroscience initiatives. As of December 2018, the Simons Foundation is listed as a White House BRAIN Initiative Alliance Member. The Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain (SCGB) is working to understand the internal processes underlying cognition.