The Open Source for Science Fund invites letters of intent from developers and maintainers of open source software projects that underpin AI and data-intensive research in the life sciences. This program will fund technical advances and address significant bottlenecks in software tools with demonstrated community adoption in the life sciences, allowing them to unlock new capabilities for scientists worldwide and evolve functionality to meet the demands of AI-native research environments. [...] Open Source for Science Fund is [...] multi-donor initiative [...] Renaissance Philanthropy [...] philanthropic and industry [...] sustain and evolve [...] scientific software for the AI era. With seed funding from Biohub [...] Wellcome, and support from [...] builds on the track record [...] for Science ( [...] ) program — six cycles, [...] deployed across 230+ projects — as a successor initiative that is operationally independent and purpose [...] built to scale. [...] “Open Source for the Life Sciences” (OS4LS) is the inaugural call of the Open Source for Science Fund. It is targeted at open source software that underpins data-intensive research and AI-driven discovery in the life sciences. [...] serves critical needs for a research audience, a realistic plan of work [...] with the project’s own roadmap [...] and genuine buy-in from [...] maintainer community about [...] For this Request for Applications, we seek to support domain-specific software tools across a broad range of [...] life sciences. We also welcome proposals focused on foundational libraries and software dependencies as well as collaborations among related projects within the same software ecosystem. [...] Available funding: Up to $250,000 USD total over two years (up to $125,000 USD/year) [...] Available funding: Up to $1,000,000 USD total over two years (up to $500,000 USD/year) [...] • Open source libraries that serve as core dependencies of scientific applications across multiple domains in [...] life sciences, OR [...] developing shared interoper [...] , or common [...] and capabilities across [...] set of related [...] within the same [...] Applications in this track may propose coordinated work spanning multiple [...] For both tracks, grants will be awarded for two years (24 months). Proposals will be evaluated for appropriateness of budget relative to the scope of work proposed. Indirect costs may not exceed 10% of direct costs and should be included in the maximum funding for each track. A detailed budget is not required at the LOI stage. [...] for staff (full-time, part-time, [...] contract): developers, contributors, [...] writers, community managers, [...] • Projects applying for funding must be open licensed and have a publicly available codebase in a repository. Proprietary software or software with custom / restrictive licenses is not eligible for funding. [...] • The software project(s) must have a mature codebase and demonstrated traction and adoption in the life sciences. Early-stage prototypes or planned software projects lacking evidence of adoption are not in scope for this call and unlikely to pass the LOI stage. [...] This is a two-step process: an initial Letter of Intent (LOI), followed by invitations to a select number of applicants to submit a Full Application. The application form will be available on May 11 at 9am Pacific Time at https://os4science.org/funding%5Fopportunity/os4ls/. [...] Date Milestone --- --- May 4, 2026 Website launch; RFA announced May 11, 2026 LOI Application portal opens (9 am PDT / 4 pm UTC) June 8, 2026 Letters of Intent due (2 pm PDT / 9 pm UTC) June 23, 2026 Notification of invitation to submit Full Applications; Full Application portal opens (9 am PDT / 4 pm UTC) July 21, 2026 Full Applications due (2 pm PDT / 9 pm UTC) October 2026 Earliest notification of decisions December 1, 2026 Earliest project start date

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