Simons awards $982K grant to Brown’s ICERM

PROVIDENCE – Brown University’s Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics received a $982,000 grant from the Simons Foundation which will be used to expand the center’s programming, according to a Tuesday announcement by the university.

Brendan Hassett, ICERM’s director, said he was “pleased and honored” to receive the grant, the maximum amount awarded by the Simons Foundation’s Targeted Grants to Institutes program.

In the statement, Hassett added that the Simons Foundation grant is a “a validation of the ICERM model.”

ICERM receives the majority of its funding from the National Science Foundation, which in 2016 renewed a five-year, $17.5 million award. Hassett hopes the additional monies, which will be used to support ICERM presenters and programming which draws mathematicians from across the world to participate in collaborative research on the Brown campus, will further incentivize more grant giving from other outside sources.

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In addition to supporting existing programming, the Simons Foundation grant will enable a new, shorter ICERM workshop in which advances can be analyzed almost immediately.

Hassett said in the statement: “Our existing process for setting up workshops has its advantages, but speed is not one of them. This new model, made possible under the grant, will help us to be a bit more nimble.”