Diversifying Funding for Digital Public Goods: are Frontier Research Contractors the answer?

FOSS infrastructure suffers a structural funding problem: teams doing the most foundational work generate value that is hard to capture, so no single actor is incentivized to fund it fully. These teams sit between academia (great at research, poor at production software) and startups (fast, but need monetizable markets). They are vital, technically demanding, and chronically underfunded.

Renaissance Philanthropy proposes "Frontier Research Contractors" (FRCs), inspired by ARPA-style programs: organizations combining technical ambition with delivery discipline and long-horizon vision. The real problem isn't funding quantity but structure: short grant cycles force teams into perpetual fundraising instead of building sustainability infrastructure (legal structures for earned revenue, business development, communications).

[Project Odin](https://projectodin.org/) applies this model to Ethereum to help teams build durable revenue alongside their research mission.

Speakers: Raul Romanutti

Track: Futures Worth Building