A Modern Melting Pot for Scientists and Engineers
Talent Mobility Fund announces more grants and a new Co-Director
Immigration systems are complicated. They also tend to be outdated. The last time Congress seriously updated the U.S. immigration system was in 1990, before the birth of the first text message, the first website, and 40% of our population.
Whatever the challenges of the current system, we ought to make the most of it. That’s what drives the Talent Mobility Fund, a program of Renaissance Philanthropy focused on deploying philanthropic resources to increase uptake of existing but underused lawful immigration pathways.
In our first round of grants last fall, we focused on the recruitment and retention of global scientists and engineers in the United States. Since then we have continued to advance this economic and strategic imperative with a second round of grants. Full details are available on this running list of grantee projects, and here are some of the tangible results so far:
ResearcherUSA provides comprehensive information on an international exchange program for researchers in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, at all degree levels, to collaborate with U.S.-based companies and institutions for up to five years on a J-1 visa.
Legal Pathways to Work, part of the Higher Ed Immigration Portal, provides information and training for international students and graduates of U.S. universities pursuing post-graduate careers here.
O-1 Pathways is an AI-powered eligibility checker for the O-1 “extraordinary ability” visa, to make the process more transparent and less intimidating.
Economic development organizations including the Center on Rural Innovation and inSpring are working in dozens of rural communities and non-traditional technology hubs across America to connect local economies with global science and engineering talent.
The Talent Mobility Fund was launched last year by Amy Nice, an immigration law and policy expert who has held senior roles in the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of General Counsel, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. (Here is a great Q&A with Amy.)
Now joining Amy as Co-Director is Doug Rand, a startup founder, immigration expert, and policymaker, who trained as an evolutionary biologist. Doug most recently served as a senior advisor at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and was previously Assistant Director for Entrepreneurship in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. As an entrepreneur, he was the co-founder and president of Boundless, and the co-founder and CEO of Playscripts. (Here is a fun article about Doug.)
We remain eager to support new efforts to attract and retain global talent in the United States, and we welcome new project proposals!
(The Talent Mobility Fund is a program of Renaissance Philanthropy and a fiscally sponsored project of the Digital Harbor Foundation. Read more about our thesis and impact model.)