[porcoda]

That does happen: foundations will fund specific research and universities apply and get it. What is often different is that foundations rarely put out open calls outside the areas the foundation is specifically interested in. That is where government funding tends to be better: covers many more areas than foundations tend to be interested in. There’s nothing stopping foundations from doing that, but I haven’t seen it very often other than a couple calls here and there. I’ve been a researcher chasing money for decades: I’d love it if foundations would fill this role, but alas, they don’t so far. Plus, the scale doesn’t match: if you added up all the private funding that is available, it’s tiny compared to the federal science budgets.

[jghn]

> That does happen: foundations will fund specific research and universities apply and get it

For instance, the Chan Zuckerberg Institute before Zuck decided he had to appear to hate science in order to curry favor with the current regime.