Schmidt Science Fellows

Schmidt Science Fellows is a post-doctoral fellowship funded by former Google chairman Eric Schmidt and his wife Wendy Schmidt and run in partnership with the Rhodes Trust: a non-profit organization who administer the Rhodes Scholarship. The program is intended to foster interdisciplinary research and teach leadership skills in a select group of post-doctoral scientists.

Structure

The fellowship is supported by Schmidt Futures, the philanthropic initiative of Eric Schmidt and Wendy Schmidt who pledged $25 million for the first three years as part of a broader $100 million drive to fund scientific research. The Rhodes Trust acts as a central partner and coordinates the selection process, mediates with partner universities, and assists in the post-doctoral placements of fellows.

The program consists of an 11-month lab-based postdoctoral research study at a leading scientific research university, followed by four global meetings.

Selection, allocation, and stipend

In its inaugural year fellows were selected from a pool of 220 international applicants from natural sciences, engineering, mathematics, and computer sciences backgrounds; then whittled down to 31 finalists. Successful applicants are given $100,000 to study in a field outside of their usual area of research and undertake a series of advanced courses and networking programs. In its first year 14 fellows were selected (eight men and six women) from twelve different universities.

Motivation

The fellowship came about due to a necessity to fund interdisciplinary research, which is often lacking grant money. Spending 11 or more months outside of their core areas of research is believed to give future scientific leaders more interdisciplinary skills.

At least half of the first 14 Schmidt Science Fellows, will be pursuing projects which rely on computation, data, AI or machine learning: technologies which in which Schmidt has shown an interest.