Our Journey
Where we come from
In 2019, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative launched the Essential Open Source Software for Science (EOSS) program to address a simple but urgent problem: the tools that power modern science were chronically underfunded. Over six years, this program deployed $58M across over 230 software projects, pioneered a first-of-its-kind multi-funder model, and demonstrated that coordinated philanthropic investment in open source could deliver measurable impact at scale. We worked with hundreds of maintainers to understand what the field needs.
The Open Source for Science Fund builds on this foundation to scale our investments and support open source for the AI era.
Participants in the kickoff event of the EOSS program (Berkeley, California, 2020)
Latest News
Blog
Hugging Face 🤝 Open Source for Science Fund
Joining forces to support the software stack behind open source scientific AI models Every month, around 200 new open source and open weight models…
Blog
Open Source for Science Fund Launches to Power AI-Driven Discovery
A new multi-donor fund by Renaissance Philanthropy seeded by Biohub and Wellcome opens its first call for proposals
Press
STAT News: New report highlights the scientific impact of open source software
A newly published report from CZI’s EOSS funding program highlights impacts and insights from their grantees over the last five years