Schmidt Sciences

Schmidt Sciences is a non-profit organisation established in 2024 by Eric and Wendy Schmidt as a spin-off of Schmidt Futures, and now carries the science portfolio of the Schmidt philanthropies. Its programmes include the AI2050 fellowships (US$125 million over five years), an AI science safety programme, the Ocean Biogeochemistry Virtual Institute run with the Schmidt Ocean Institute, and a substantial astronomy portfolio. It should not be confused with the Schmidt Family Foundation, a separate environment and energy funder.

For UNIMA's purposes, the important structural point is that Schmidt Sciences does not run this fellowship itself. It funds the University of Michigan, and the Michigan Institute for Data and AI in Society (MIDAS) runs the competition, selects the fellows and administers the awards.

The African Faculty Fellows Program supports African university faculty and research-organisation scientists who want to embed artificial intelligence in their own science; it funds twelve months of residency and advanced AI training at Michigan, then funds a second year implementing that work at the home institution. The wider Schmidt AI in Science postdoctoral network runs at Michigan, Oxford, Imperial College London, Nanyang Technological University and the National University of Singapore, and AIMS South Africa appears as an African linked-fellowship partner through Imperial.