Research Corporation

Research Corporation for Science Advancement is an organization in the United States devoted to the advancement of science, funding research projects in the physical sciences. Since 1912, Research Corporation for Science Advancement has identified trends in science and education, financing many scientific research projects.
The Research Corporation was founded in 1912 by Frederick Gardner Cottrell, scientist, inventor, environmentalist and philanthropist, with initial funding derived from the profits from his patents on the electrostatic precipitator. Research Corporation was the second foundation established in the United States and America's first foundation devoted solely to the advancement of science. For over 100 years, RCSA has catalyzed transformative research by funding top early-career teacher-scholars at America's colleges and universities.
RCSA seeks to identify and support ideas that could revolutionize and advance entire fields of study. At the same time, RCSA works to improve U.S. science education by advocating that faculty members enhance their teaching and contribution to society by remaining active in research and by involving undergraduates in their work. For many years the foundation has maintained that involving undergraduates in research develops critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, and intellectual independence, and promotes an innovation-oriented culture.
RCSA supports direct grants to academic scientists; conferences that leverage important scientific work that is already under way; advocacy with an emphasis on the research of early-career faculty; promulgating innovative ideas for scientific transformation; the integration of research and science teaching; interdisciplinary research; and building academic cultures that look toward tomorrow's scientific needs.
During the 1920s and 1930s, many scientists took out patents of their developments and assigned them to the Research Corporation in order to guarantee that any profits made from their work would be used for further scientific research. The Research Corporation played a major role in the minds of many scientists of the period in formulating ideal policies about the role of intellectual property in science. It was one of the first foundations in the United States. In 1987, their invention-handing facilities became Research Corporation Technologies, a wholly independent company which handles technology transfer. It was also a major supporter of the research that led to the presentation of Interlingua in 1951.

Grants Programs: Cottrell Scholar Awards

The Cottrell Scholar Awards program reinforces the growing awareness that teaching and research are complementary rather than wholly or partially exclusive. RCSA believes this convergence is essential for increasing the number of students who are attracted and retained in science.
Cottrell Scholar Awards are intended to:

Create a culture shift in Ph.D.-granting institutions toward valuing the university scholar;
Increase the attraction and retention of undergraduates in science;
Increase the number of undergraduates from Ph.D.-granting institutions pursuing graduate degrees.

The program provides $120,000 over three years to early-career faculty in chemistry, physics, astronomy, biochemistry and biophysics at major research universities. Cottrell Scholars are chosen not only for their high-quality research, but also for their dedication to the task of teaching undergraduates. There are currently nearly 500 Scholars in the United States and Canada.
Each award recipient is required to attend at least two annual conferences during the three-year term of the award. These conferences are focused on providing opportunities to share teaching knowledge as well as mentoring from previous award recipients and nationally recognized experts on such topics as navigating career paths, and balancing research and education in the research university environment. Numerous Cottrell Scholars have found the knowledge and recognition the program provides to be major motivating factors in their efforts to push through reforms in undergraduate science curricula at their universities.
In 2011 RCSA did not make any regular Cottrell Scholar Awards; instead, foundation personnel and various Cottrell Scholars focused on revamping and reorienting the program to increase its effectiveness in the coming decade. At the 2011 conference, a new synergistic organization, the Cottrell Scholar Collaborative, was launched. The Collaborative's central goal is to act collectively to change the way undergraduate science education is taught at major American universities.

Grants Programs: Cottrell College Science Awards, Arizona Partners in Science Awards

These programs have been discontinued.

Grants Programs: Scialog

The Scialog program was created in 2010 to promote cross-disciplinary research on important global scientific themes. Its name is a portmanteau of "science" and "dialogue." Each Scialog invites 50+ early-career researchers from varying disciplines, institutions and approaches to participate in three annual conferences led by facilitators who are experts in their fields. Participants are challenged to identify ways in which they might collaborate on novel research, and to pitch their proposals at the end of the conference. RCSA and its co-sponsors award seed funding to the most promising proposals. ]
Scialog's unique way of promoting collaboration at conferences is being studied by a team of researchers at Northwestern University.

Strategic Partnerships

Research Corporation for Science Advancement works with corporations, fellow foundations, and government offices and agencies, as well as educational institutions, across the country.
In order to increase the breadth of its influence, in 2010 Research Corporation established a Strategic Partnerships program charged with increasing its endowment and establishing collaborations with corporations, fellow foundations, government offices and agencies.

Presidents

Nobel Laureates

Research Corporation for Science Advancement has funded the early work of at least 40 scientists who have received Nobel Prizes.

Year	Name	Category	RCSA grant	Research topic	Ref
1934	Harold C. Urey	Chemistry	1938	Isotopes
1939	Ernest O. Lawrence	Physics	1931, 1939	Cyclotron, nuclear physics
1944	Isidor Isaac Rabi	Physics	1931, 1937	Molecular beam research, magnetic moment of the atom
1946	Percy W. Bridgman	Physics	1954	Properties of matter under pressure with a particular reference to the properties of alloys
1950	Edward C. Kendall	Physiology or Medicine	1942	Cortical hormones
1952	Felix Bloch	Physics	1939, 1946	Low voltage generator, nuclear induction and its application to polarized neutrons	-
1952	Edward M. Purcell	Physics	1946, 1948	Resonance absorption by nuclear magnetic moments
1958	George Beadle	Physiology or Medicine	1944	Induction and detection of biochemical mutations in Neurospora crassa
1958	Edward L. Tatum	Physiology or Medicine	1946, 1947, 1971, 1974	Use of isotopes in the study of biosynthesis of amino acids, characterization of enzymes of morphological mutants of Neurospora
1959	Severo Ochoa	Physiology or Medicine	1941, 1944, 1951	Intermediary carbohydrate metabolism, respiratory enzymes and the mechanism of the biological oxidation of pyruvic acid, enzyme systems involved in biological oxidations and syntheses
1961	Robert Hofstadter	Physics	1950	Nuclear electric charge distribution by experiments on the elastic scattering of electrons from nuclei
1964	Feodor Lynen	Physiology or Medicine	1954	Biosynthesis of the fatty acids and isoprene derivatives
1965	Robert B. Woodward	Chemistry	1949, 1957	Synthesis of cortisone, structure and synthesis of chlorophyll
1967	Manfred Eigen	Chemistry	1954	Velocity and mechanism of high speed ionic reactions
1968	Robert W. Holley	Physiology or Medicine	1958	Chemistry of intermediates in protein synthesis
1969	Max Delbrück	Physiology or Medicine	1958	Production, characterization and mapping of the phage T2L
1973	Ernst Otto Fischer	Chemistry	1961	Extension of metal microanalysis
1976	William N. Lipscomb Jr.	Chemistry	1959	Determination of the molecular structure of an enzyme, a proteinase from Tetrahymena pyriformis W, by x-ray diffraction methods
1979	Herbert C. Brown	Chemistry	1948, 1949	Effects of structure on the chemistry of addition compounds
1979	George Wald	Physiology or Medicine	1942, 1949	Physiological action of thiamin in neuromuscular systems, cozymase-destroying systems in the tissues of freshwater fishes or the conversion of β-Carotene to vitamin A in vitro
1979	Georg Wittig	Chemistry	1955	Organic anion chemistry
1986	Dudley Herschbach	Chemistry	1998	Mechanical means to decelerate gaseous molecules
1987	Donald J. Cram	Chemistry	1951	Macro-ring compounds containing aromatic nuclei as part of the ring systems
1989	Thomas R. Cech	Chemistry	1977, 1978	Photochemical crosslinking of DNA with psoralens
1990	Elias J. Corey	Chemistry	1958, 1959	Synthesis of electronically unstable organic structures protected by large substituents
1992	Rudolph A. Marcus	Chemistry	1954, 1956	Behavior of the dicarboxylate ions
1992	Edwin G. Krebs	Physiology or Medicine	1958, 1959	Immunochemical studies on glycolytic enzymes
1993	Joseph H. Taylor Jr.	Physics	1970	Temporal variation of pulsars
1995	Frederick Reines	Physics	1959, 1961	Neurons and gamma-rays of extraterrestrial origin
1996	Robert C. Richardson	Physics	1972, 1973	Possible superfluid properties of liquid 3He
1996	Robert F. Curl Jr.	Chemistry	1958	Microwave spectra of radicals and molecules
1996	Richard E. Smalley	Chemistry	1976, 1977	Supersonic molecular beam laser spectroscopy of photoactive molecules
1999	Ahmed H. Zewail	Chemistry	1976	Energy transport in high-dimensional solids
2000	Alan G. MacDiarmid	Chemistry	1956, 1957, 1959	Silico-ethyl compounds
2001	Carl E. Wieman	Physics	1981	Precision test of the Weinberg-Salam theory of weak and electromagnetic interactions	-
2001, 2022	Karl B. Sharpless	Chemistry	1971	Chemistry of cis-dioxotransition metal species and its relevance to the action of mixed function oxygenases
2002	Raymond Davis Jr.	Physics	1948	studies in the adsorption of gases by solids