Simons Foundation Inc.

The Simons Foundation is one of the most selective science funders in the United States, with $4.48 billion in assets and a track record of writing transformative checks to elite research universities. Its giving philosophy centers on high-risk, high-reward basic science — the kind that federal agencies often decline because the payoff is uncertain and the timeline is long. Jim Simons, the late mathematician and hedge fund billionaire who founded the organization, built it to invest in discovery-driven research before the world understands why it matters.

The Foundation divides its work into four programmatic divisions: Mathematics & Physical Sciences (MPS), Life Sciences, Autism Research (SFARI), and Science, Society & Culture. A fifth arm — the Flatiron Institute — is an in-house computational research center that consumes $71.4 million per year in operating expenses and does not make external grants. Understanding this distinction is important: the Foundation is not primarily a grant-giving institution but a science institution that also funds outside researchers.

For external applicants, the critical fact is this: the Foundation is preselected only. It does not accept unsolicited full proposals from strangers. The pathway in is almost always through a Letter of Intent (LOI), an invitation from a program officer, or an existing collaborative relationship. First-time applicants at MPS submit a two-page LOI via the Simons Award Manager; if the concept resonates, a full six-page proposal invitation follows within three months.

The Foundation favors institutions with strong research infrastructure. Its top grantees — Stony Brook Foundation ($64.7M), New York Genome Center ($63.6M), UCSD ($48.4M), MIT ($26.3M), Princeton ($21.3M), University of Washington ($20.5M), NYU ($18.7M), Columbia ($16.8M), UC Berkeley ($17.5M) — are research universities with established track records in science. New entrants to the portfolio almost always have a pre-existing relationship with a program officer or come in as a subcontractor on an existing Simons Collaboration.

For first-time applicants, the smartest approach is to subscribe to RFA announcements via the Foundation's newsletter, identify the one or two programs closest to your research, attend Foundation-organized workshops to build personal connections, and — if you are in autism research — engage with SFARI's community before applying.

The Simons Foundation paid $271.9 million in grants in fiscal year 2024, down from $317 million in 2023 and $295.9 million in 2022, reflecting both investment portfolio fluctuations and the planned rhythm of large multi-year Collaboration renewals. Total assets stood at $4.48 billion at fiscal year-end 2024, down from a peak of $5.26 billion in 2021.

Across the Foundation's tracked grant database of 6,617 awards totaling approximately $1.19 billion, the median grant is $99,709 and the average is $191,610 — but the range tells a more important story: from as small as $80 to as large as $23.3 million in a single award. This bimodal distribution reflects two very different types of funding: large Simons Collaborations (multi-PI, multi-year consortia that can exceed $8–10 million per year) and smaller individual investigator awards under Targeted Grants or SFARI Pilot programs.

Geographically, the Foundation is heavily concentrated in major research university hubs. New York accounts for 1,003 of the tracked grants, California for 936, Massachusetts for 692, Texas for 246, Illinois for 223, New Jersey for 275, Pennsylvania for 212, Washington State for 148, and Maryland for 138. Roughly 60% of grant volume by count flows through NY, CA, and MA — reflecting the location of flagship research universities, not any explicit geographic restriction.

By program area, the Flatiron Institute's operating expenses ($71.4M) represent the single largest line item, followed by autism and neuroscience research ($28.5M annual program expenses reported) and Science, Society & Culture ($19.2M). MPS grants vary widely; a Targeted Grant in MPS might run $500K–$3M over five years, while a Simons Collaboration in MPS can run $8–15M per year for a decade.

Specific program sizing: Fellows-to-Faculty awards are exactly $600,000 over three years ($200K/year). AMS-Simons PUI Research Grants are $3,000 per year. SFARI Pilot Awards are typically $200K–$300K for two years. The SCENE neuroscience collaboration runs at $8M+ per year for ten years, totaling more than $80M.

The Simons Foundation occupies a unique niche among large private foundations: it is explicitly and exclusively focused on basic science and mathematics, with no education, social services, or community development programs. Most foundations of comparable asset size are far more diversified in their giving. This single-focus model means competition for Simons dollars comes from within the scientific community, not from across sectors.

The Simons Foundation's closest peer in science philanthropy is the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, which also funds basic science and environmental research at scale. Both require LOIs and have long grant cycles. However, Moore has broader sector coverage (including environmental work), while Simons is more narrowly concentrated in theoretical and computational sciences. The Kavli Foundation operates similarly but at roughly one-quarter the endowment and grant volume.

Among the peer foundations in the Foundation's own dataset (Knight, California Endowment, Crankstart, Sergey Brin Family Foundation — all $4.3–4.5B in assets), none compete in the basic science space. This makes the Simons Foundation effectively uncontested in its niche, which is both an advantage (no competing funders for the same grants) and a constraint (the pool of eligible recipients is deliberately narrow).

The most significant recent development is the launch of the Simons Collaboration on Ecological Neuroscience (SCENE) in 2025, committing more than $8 million per year for 10 years — roughly $80 million total — to unite neuroscientists and machine learning researchers studying how animals process sensory information in natural environments. This is among the largest single new program launches in the Foundation's recent history and signals a strategic push to bridge biological and artificial intelligence research.

In January 2026, NYU launched the Simons Center for Computational Geophysical Flows, backed by a five-year $10 million grant from Simons Foundation International. The center focuses on weather, climate, and ocean modeling and combines applied mathematics with data science — a characteristic Simons-style investment at the intersection of computation and a grand scientific challenge.

Also in 2025, the Foundation funded the Simons Collaboration on Black Holes and Strong Gravity, a new multi-institution program uniting physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, and observers to decode gravitational wave signals. This is a competitive field following the LIGO discoveries, and the Foundation's entry signals sustained interest in fundamental physics.

For 2026, the MPS division has announced it expects to award up to three new Simons Collaborations, representing a substantial deployment of capital. Open LOI windows for Targeted Grants in MPS remain rolling throughout the year. The Conference Support for Rare Neurodevelopmental Disorder Communities (SFARI) program is open with a March 6, 2026 deadline. The Simons Collaborations in Ecology and Evolution program had a full proposal deadline of April 15, 2026.

President David Spergel — a Princeton astrophysicist who previously chaired NASA's Science Advisory Committee — has been in the role since 2021 and continues to shape the Foundation's scientific direction.

Know before you apply: this foundation does not welcome cold proposals. The preselected-only status is not bureaucratic language — it reflects a genuine culture of invitation-driven funding. The most effective entry strategy is to engage with Simons program officers at scientific conferences, respond to specific RFA announcements via the Foundation's mailing list, or build collaborative relationships with existing Simons grantees who can make introductions.

For MPS applicants: The LOI for Targeted Grants is rolling — you can submit any time via the Simons Award Manager (SAM). The two-page narrative should articulate why your theoretical work is high-risk and why it cannot be funded by standard NSF or DOE mechanisms. Program officers look for specificity of intellectual ambition, not general claims of importance. Avoid framing your work as incremental or applied. Decisions on LOIs come within three months.

For SFARI applicants: Subscribe to the SFARI mailing list at sfari.org — most RFAs are announced with 60–90 day application windows and do not roll. Register your institution in proposalCENTRAL now, before an RFA drops, so you are not scrambling to set up accounts when a deadline hits. SFARI prioritizes genetic and molecular mechanisms of autism spectrum disorder; behavioral and social science proposals that lack biological grounding tend to score poorly.

Indirect cost alignment: The 20% indirect cost cap is non-negotiable. Before submitting, confirm with your grants office that your institution can accept a Simons award at this rate — many large universities have federally-negotiated rates of 55–65% and require waivers for foundation grants.

Collaboration framing wins: Across virtually every Simons program, multi-disciplinary and multi-PI proposals outperform single-investigator submissions. Frame your work as one node in a broader intellectual network, not a standalone project.

Timing: Plan for 6–12 months from LOI submission to award for MPS. SFARI pilot programs typically have 4–6 month review cycles. Simons Collaborations involve multi-stage review over 12–18 months.