Convergent Research

Convergent Research is a non-profit science studio, founded in 2021, that launches and runs Focused Research Organizations (FROs): time-bound, technically ambitious projects aimed at building public goods - tools, datasets and infrastructure - for problems that are too engineering-heavy for academia and not commercially viable for private companies. Each FRO carries pre-specified technical goals, operates for three to seven years with clear milestones, and is backed by $20m–$50m in funding. Full-time teams of engineers, scientists and operators execute the work in a structure that combines focused startup execution with the mandate of a public research institution.

The organisation has raised more than $350m philanthropically, with donors including Eric Schmidt, Wendy Schmidt and Ken Griffin, and has established more than ten FROs. Technical domains span neuroscience, neural circuit mapping, proteomics, synthetic biology, bioengineering tool development, drug discovery, open dataset creation and scientific infrastructure. The emphasis is on "medium-scale" cross-disciplinary problems that sit between the grant-funded lab and the venture-backed firm.

Alongside its FROs, Convergent Research maintains the Gap Map, a database that identifies critical R&D bottlenecks across 20 scientific fields and matches them with potential solutions. Projects are milestone-driven and time-bound, and their outputs are intended as public goods that anyone can use.