John Templeton Foundation

Ideas Challenge Winners

Congratulations to our 2020 Ideas Challenge winners! Over 250 unique ideas were submitted from applicants across the United States this year. Each submission were reviewed by a panel of judges who were blinded from the identity of the applicants.

Our top finalists received $1000 for each winning idea, which explore novel theoretical, philosophical, or scientific ideas useful for advancing the study of goal-directed, goal-seeking, or goal-suited phenomena in nature. A subset of these winners will be supported by the Foundation in forthcoming grants and other programmatic initiatives.

Select one of the topical areas related to the Science of Purpose below to view more about the winners and their project ideas.

Agency
Anurag Agrawal	J. Arvid Ågren	Nicole Creanza
Nick Hollon	Ambika Kamath	Eric Mandelbaum
	Felicity Muth
Commonalities
Donald Bruckner	Justin Garson
Development
Mercedes Burns	Michael Levin	Armin Moczek
	Jeremy Skrzypek
Life
Zachary Adam	Dee Denver	Maaneli Derakhshani
Robert Hazen	Matthew Pasek
Macroevolution
Chris Kempes	Thomas Linscott	Lauren Sallan
	Beckett Sterner
Matter
William Fitzgerald	Cristian Huepe
Mechanisms
Christopher Bazinet	James Bradley	Zac Davis
Luis Pedro Garcia-Pintos	Jake Gavenas	Frank Keil
John Kounios	Brian Lerch	Patrick McNamara
	Stephanie Miller
Models
Ben Allen	Dominic Halsmer	Cristian Huepe
Tomas Leon	Michael Levin	Joanna Masel
	John Realpe-Gomez
Organization
Jonathan Askonas	Anna Guerrero	Elliot Nelson
Open Track
Allen Buchanan	James Dixon	F. Enrique Guerra-Pujol
Caleb Hazelwood	Michael Lachmann	Maulik Parikh