Moore Foundation funds four hubs to rebuild chemistry's design rules

Overview

Updated 46 minutes ago

Nature already builds materials that assemble themselves, respond to their surroundings and repair damage. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation wants to know why chemistry in a factory rarely does the same, and on November 12 it named four university-led hubs to find out.

The hubs split four problems: weak molecular forces (McGill University), catalysts that react to light or electricity (Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion), safer molecules designed with artificial intelligence (George Washington University), and the interior behavior of complex mixtures (University of Kansas). They are part of a Green Chemistry Initiative the foundation has expanded to $196.25 million over 10 years, with 19 institutions in eight countries and an estimated $656 million in donated equipment and expertise across the network.

Why it matters

Plastics, coatings and drugs could be designed for low toxicity and reuse from the start instead of cleaned up after use.

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Key Indicators

$196.25M

Green Chemistry Initiative commitment

Total foundation funding over 10 years, as stated in the announcement.

$40M+

Grants to the four lead institutions

Split among George Washington University, the Max Planck Society, McGill and Kansas.

Participating institutions

Universities and research institutes across the four hub teams.

Countries represented

Span of the hub network, per the foundation.

$656M

Estimated in-kind resources

Equipment, facilities and computing the foundation counts across the network.

Voices

Curated perspectives — historical figures and your fellow readers.

People Involved

Paul Anastas

Program Director, Green Chemistry Initiative, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

Directing the 10-year, $196.25 million program

Bala Subramaniam

Director, DeMiST hub; Dan F. Servey Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Energy Engineering, University of Kansas

Leading the complex-mixtures hub on a $10 million grant

Chao-Jun Li

Director, Beyond the Molecule hub; professor, McGill University

Leading the weak-interactions hub on a US$10 million grant

Organizations Involved

Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

Private foundation

Funder of the four hubs and the wider Green Chemistry Initiative

The foundation bankrolling the four hubs through a green chemistry program it has expanded to $196.25 million over 10 years.

Beyond the Molecule Hub

Research hub

Studying weak molecular interactions on a US$10 million grant

A McGill-led hub examining how weak forces between molecules guide reactions and shape material properties.

DeMiST Hub (Decoding Mixtures for Sustainable Transformations)

Research hub

Studying complex mixtures on a $10 million grant

A Kansas-led hub working out how the local conditions inside complex mixtures determine chemical behavior.

Safer Molecular Design Hub

Research hub

Combining artificial intelligence and quantum chemistry to design out hazard

A George Washington University-led hub using AI and quantum chemistry to embed safety into molecules at the design stage.

Adaptive Catalytic Systems Hub

Research hub

Studying catalysts that respond to light, electricity or chemical signals

A Max Planck-led hub investigating catalysts that change behavior in response to external signals.

Timeline

2026 November 2026

3 events Latest: Yesterday

November 2026
Four green chemistry hubs announced
Latest Announcement

Moore names hubs at George Washington, Max Planck, McGill and Kansas, with more than $40 million in grants across 19 institutions.
Yesterday
May 2026
Anastas recruits Kansas for a hub
Planning

The foundation's Paul Anastas approaches Kansas engineer Bala Subramaniam about leading a complex-mixtures hub.
May 2026
2026
Moore Foundation expands its green chemistry program
Funding

The foundation grows the Green Chemistry Initiative to $196.25 million over 10 years, built around priorities identified with the scientific community.
2026

Scenarios

Hubs publish joint cross-hub research

Likely Resolves by Nov 12, 2029

Discussed by: Moore Foundation announcement materials, which commit the hubs to exchanging discoveries, data, tools and techniques through a shared consortium

The foundation says the four hubs will swap data and methods rather than work in isolation. A paper listing authors from two or more hubs would be the first public evidence the network is more than four separate grants. The likeliest early candidates are the weak-interactions and complex-mixtures hubs, whose computational work overlaps.

A hub-developed method reaches commercial production

Possible Resolves by End of 2031

Discussed by: Moore Foundation materials, which say findings will be published so companies and startups can build on them

The foundation frames the research as pre-competitive: too risky for private investment without proof of concept, then handed off through publication. Commercial uptake would show whether the design principles transfer out of the lab. It would also test Subramaniam's claim that the funding solves a gap private companies will not fill alone.

Moore Foundation renews the program for a second decade

Uncertain Resolves by End of 2036

Discussed by: No party has stated a renewal position; the question follows from the program's fixed 10-year term

The commitment runs 10 years. Whether the foundation extends it depends on what the hubs publish and whether other funders absorb the work. Renewal would signal that the mechanistic approach delivered results the foundation considers worth continuing.

Historical Context

3 moments from history that rhyme with this story — and how they unfolded.

1990-2003

Human Genome Project (1990-2003)

A public consortium led by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Department of Energy, joined by the Wellcome Trust and laboratories in France, Japan, Germany and China, set out to sequence all three billion letters of human DNA. The group released sequence data daily rather than holding it for publication.

Then

The U.S. government spent roughly $2.7 billion over 13 years, and the consortium published a finished reference sequence in 2003, ahead of its original target.

Now

The project established the template for large publicly funded consortia that release pre-competitive data openly, later copied by neuroscience and microbiome programs.

Why this matters now

Moore's hubs copy the structure: pooled money across institutions, shared equipment, and questions too expensive for any single lab or company to answer alone.

1954

CERN founded (1954)

Twelve European countries created a joint laboratory for particle physics so they could build accelerators no single nation could afford. Member states pooled money for shared instruments rather than duplicating facilities.

Then

European physics recovered research capacity it had lost during the Second World War.

Now

The model produced the World Wide Web in 1989 and the Higgs boson announcement in 2012, both from shared infrastructure funded by many governments.

Why this matters now

The hubs rely on the same logic: institutions contribute equipment and expertise to a network, and results flow back to all of them.

1998

The 12 Principles of Green Chemistry published (1998)

Paul Anastas, then working in the U.S. environmental regulatory system, and John Warner published a short book laying out 12 principles for designing chemicals to be benign, energy-efficient and waste-free.

Then

The principles spread through university curricula and industrial research groups as a shared vocabulary for cleaner chemical design.

Now

They became the field's common reference point, but remained design guidelines rather than testable rules about how molecules actually behave.

Why this matters now

Anastas now runs the Moore program. The hubs are his attempt to give those principles a mechanistic foundation the field can build on.