Caltech on Thursday, March 21, announced the opening of the Brinson Exploration Hub, a new center on campus that leaders say will revolutionize how certain research is executed at the institution.
The Hub will foster partnerships between academia, government and industry to accelerate the pace of innovation and discovery. By taking on a more risk-tolerant, fast-paced approach to ambitious research projects, the Hub’s founders and leaders hope to open up new avenues for research that will benefit both humankind and scientific understanding.
“We want to reimagine how we do missions in the future, and this means working with commercial partners to advance the pace and lower the cost of scientific discoveries,” explained Mark Simons, John W. and Herberta M. Miles Professor of Geophysics, former chief scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Hub’s inaugural director.
“The Brinson Hub is not just about building missions but figuring out how to best go about this at a faster cadence and an acceptable tolerance of risk,” Simons said.
The Hub was founded on a $100 million donation from the Brinson Foundation, a philanthropic organization dedicated to supporting initiatives in education and science that produce societal benefits.
The Foundation’s founder and board chairman, Gary P. Brinson, hopes that the Hub will provide scientists with the freedom to pursue research that benefits society.
“We’re trying to supply the scientists with a $100 million dollar blank canvas if you will, let them paint that canvas with their expertise and hopefully the benefits will flow from that exploration activity,” Brinson explained.
The Hub will be run by members of Caltech’s campus and JPL. Researchers from both institutions can submit proposals for projects they believe could benefit from the Hub’s approach. Members of the Hub will determine which proposals to accept based on a set of guidelines.
According to Simons, the guidelines include that…
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