It takes more than bold ideas to have a positive impact on communities: it takes commitment and the intellectual freedom to explore innovative solutions that can change lives for the better. In an era of “preliminary results required,” federal and state funding for starter projects has all but disappeared. The Chemistry Discovery Fund gives our faculty a way to continue exploring fresh ideas. This research competition provides faculty with overhead-free grants to initiate new projects. Vision 2020 is an endowed fund that provides unrestricted support for departmental use, including faculty startups, equipment and instrumentation, building projects, and more.

Our faculty are fighting antibiotic resistance, building revolutionary synthesis machines, designing software that learns to recognize predictive genomic features, and much more. Supporting Chemistry faculty at Illinois in turn supports innovative pioneers with ideas that have broad impact across the world.