The privately-donated funds will expand the UC San Diego organization’s observational capacity in the largely unknown parts of the ocean.
UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography has received a $15 million grant from the Fund for Science and Technology, a new private foundation funded by the estate of Microsoft co-founder Paul G Allen.
The grant is the largest of its kind since SIO became part of UCSD.
The award, which UCSD Chancellor Pradeep Khosla in a press release called “visionary support,” will be used to expand the institution’s observational capabilities into parts of the ocean where data has historically been sparse or nonexistent, specifically in three research areas: monitoring environmental DNA; growing the Argo network of ocean-observing robots; and enhancing the study of conditions beneath Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier, often called the Doomsday Glacier.
The Fund for Science and Technology launched in 2025 committed to investing at least $500 million over four years to advance transformative science and technology.
“The ocean holds answers to some of the most pressing questions about our planet’s future, but only if we can observe it,” SIO director Meenakshi Wadhwa said in a press release. “This historic grant will help ocean scientists bring new tools and approaches to parts of the ocean we’ve barely begun to explore.”
