Rainwater Charitable Foundation: Meaningful Uses of AI- TAU

Award: up to $1 Million, up to $250,000 per team
Deadline: October 30, 2026
Interested? Notify [email protected]​​ for more information. All LOI documents will be due to our office no later than October 23.

Full Request for Proposal (RFP)

Overview

The Rainwater Charitable Foundation is launching the Learning Research Network (LRN), a new Tau Consortium initiative designed to advance primary tauopathy research through meaningful uses of artificial intelligence, collaboration, and shared scientific resources.

This is an open funding opportunity for researchers and technical leaders who can bring strong scientific questions and innovative AI-enabled approaches to the field. The foundation welcomes investigators, engineers, data scientists, computational researchers, technical leaders, and interdisciplinary teams from academic, medical, research, nonprofit, and commercial organizations worldwide.

Funder seeks proposals that use AI in meaningful ways to accelerate discovery, enable new forms of scientific collaboration, and strengthen how data, tools, workflows, and knowledge can be shared and reused. AI should be integral to the proposed approach and provide a clear scientific or collaborative advantage over traditional methods. Areas of Interest include AI-Ready Data, AI-Enabled Collaboration and Workflows, and Strengthening the Neurodegenerative Research Field.

Projects should address important biological or translational questions in primary tauopathies and demonstrate strong scientific significance. Collaborative proposals are strongly encouraged, though not required, and projects may include up to four participating laboratories or technical teams. Applicants are encouraged to develop outputs that can extend beyond the immediate project, including well-curated datasets, software, AI-enabled tools, workflows, standards, or other reusable resources that can contribute to the Learning Research Network and benefit the broader research community.

Projects may include up to four participating laboratories or technical teams, with funding of up to $250,000 per team and a maximum total project budget of $1 million.

Important Information

Areas of Interest

AI-Ready Data: Generate FAIR, well-curated, AI-ready datasets designed for broad scientific reuse. Projects should support interoperability through appropriate metadata, documentation, and data standards and, where appropriate, develop harmonized or benchmark datasets that benefit the broader research community.

AI-Enabled Collaboration and Workflows: Use AI-enabled approaches to create shared research environments that connect data, analyses, workflows, communications, and scientific knowledge to accelerate discovery and collaboration. Projects may develop reusable AI agents, analysis pipelines, APIs, workflow tools, or other resources that enable efficient sharing of knowledge and scientific workflows.

Strengthening the Neurodegenerative Research Field: Develop persistent, interoperable, and reusable infrastructure, tools, standards, or practices that extend beyond the immediate project and can be adopted by the broader research community. Examples may include knowledge graphs, foundation models, data-sharing frameworks, shared scientific infrastructure, and autonomous or semi-autonomous research workflows.

Indirect costs not allowed by funder. FAQs and preview of LOI questions at bottom of this page.

If you are considering an application in which you are the Principal Investigator, please ensure you meet PI eligibility requirements.

Process