Breaking scientific barriers with a Focused Research Organization

A Focused Research Organization (FRO) fills the gap where R&D climate projects aren’t appropriate for either for-profit or academic settings. It combines the best of both, working towards specific technical milestones to create a public good. These organizations aren’t venture-backable, but provide an opportunity within a specific window of time to take a shot at something that would accelerate the entire field.

Anastasia Gamick is the co-founder and chief operating officer of the non-profit Convergent Research. We sat down with her to discuss how FROs differ from startups, how they’re funded, and what you need to know before setting one up. 

FRO basics 

1. Similar to a startup, with different incentives
An FRO is a medium-sized R&D project that’s organized like a startup and mimics its agility and focus, but isn’t driven by the same incentives. Typically, FROs are useful where there isn’t a venture scale market opportunity on the other side of the research, long timeline for returns, or outsized high levels of risk that are outside the VC purview. Rather than raising venture funds, FROs typically raise philanthropically - with the aim of developing a public good.

2. Structure
The corporate structure of an FRO will depend entirely on what best suits its purpose. It could be a non-profit, for profit, or even an effort within a larger organization. For example, Convergent Research has incubated 8 FROs structures as nonprofit subsidiaries. One could look at the “strike team” nature of AlphaFold within DeepMind, or certain deep tech startups where early fundraising is disconnected from progress and most would consider them FROs.

3. Funding
FRO funding typically comes from private philanthropies, public charities, and government funding, and is a mix of grants and contracts. As a non-profit, there will be no return-seeking capital involved, but it’s possible to create an FRO as a for-profit, and take investment capital with very different expectations around risk and return. 

4. Post-FRO
You might end up developing a technology that becomes a commercializable product, so the FRO might evolve into a venture-backable tech company. But this is a secondary outcome, not the project’s intent: the intent is simply to produce the IP in the first place. And if that product doesn’t then become a public good through a non-profit, or isn’t taken up by academia or industry, you have failed at having an actual impact. 

Tips for setting up an FRO

1. Think big
Your project should have the potential to unlock massive downstream outputs and essentially transform the market. Instead of eking out another 1% efficiency in photovoltaics, you want to spur a technology that will revolutionize the entire ecosystem. Do some roadmapping to identify these scientific bottlenecks that aren’t going to be solved in traditional academic settings. Many funders will understand that you’re taking a big swing, and it might be okay to fail. 

2. Craft the right narrative for your funders
Funders, whether it’s the Department of Energy, impact-first investors, or philanthropists, often put out calls for solutions to a specific problem. This can make your fundraising journey easier - because you have a very clear idea of the impact your FRO will ideally generate, you can align it with these calls from funders. It’s best to speak to funders as early as possible to understand what their capacity is and whether this is the kind of project they want to fund. 

3. Scope your project carefully 
The success of an FRO hinges on how well you structure the program. Before the project gets started, you’ll need to develop a clear set of milestones that are challenging but technically feasible. What kind of team do you need, what budget, and what roadmap over five years will allow you to hit those milestones?

Scoping your project correctly is crucial, because you’ll have to execute against it, as your grant agreements will specify what you’re performing in exchange for the funding. While in a typical for-profit, you have the ability to change your scope and targets and geography, this can be trickier to do in an FRO - its entire purpose is to focus on one project with a set timeline and specific group of people.

You can also get help with scoping your project.  There are several organizations working on helping fellows develop highly impactful climate projects and FROs. Astera, Speculative Technologies, ARC, Renaissance Philanthropy, Activate and Convergent Research all have programs meant to help scientists and founders do the early work to form companies or FROs.  Universities are also often interested in creating university-adjacent FROs. 

4. Deciding on a legal structure
An FRO doesn’t have to be a non-profit. What’s more important when settling on a legal structure is thinking through what your funders want, what’s best for your technology, and what will keep you mission-aligned. 

If you do decide to be a non-profit, you’ll need to consider how you’ll handle your IP. Doing the legwork of creating a tech transfer office and IP policy will make your life much easier down the line, especially if you start to spin out into a for-profit company, donate your assets, or make any other moves post-FRO. 

5. Hire both academic and industry talent
If you come from academia, you might be very surprised by the impact having industry veterans on your team brings. Some of that impact will come in the form of explicit knowledge or practices - OKRs, agile, vendor management, quarterly planning, etc. But a surprising amount of impact will come from their different cultural background. 

6. Don't wait to hire the doers
If you can afford to, don’t delay hiring key roles like a lab manager - otherwise, the CEO will inevitably end up taking on that work. Bringing the right person in sooner rather than later will free up that capacity for strategic thought and experimentation, and have a huge impact on your progress.

7. Foster relationships with end users
An FRO can be very inward-looking and focused on meeting its milestones. But it’s equally important to spend time in the communities that will actually be using your product - this will help you understand the wider context of your work. Try to maintain those relationships even as you’re immersed in the technical work of building the product. 

8. Plug into the FRO community
There’s a growing metascience community of people who’re thinking about alternative institutional models that can generate impact. Cultivate a network of people around you who are also engaged in this world in order to learn from them - this is especially important in such an emerging space. 

Anastasia Gamick is the Cofounder and Chief Operating Officer at Convergent Research. There, she is pioneering a new model for large-scale science projects called Focused Research Organizations (FROs), which address neglected bottlenecks in biomedicine, biosecurity, climate technology, and other areas.

Previously, Anastasia was the first operations hire at Neuralink, was Chief of Staff at the robotics company Creator, oversaw the Give Directly relationship at the fintech company Segovia, and led the scale-up of COVID-19 test kit production at Curative, Inc in the first weeks of the pandemic.