Our nonprofit work
Opening access to real science
Our nonprofit programs help students, educators, independent researchers, and schools take part in serious scientific work, even when they do not have the usual access to institutions, mentors, funding, or research networks.
What we do
We believe real research should be judged by the quality of the question, the method, the evidence, and the work itself, not by a person’s title, school, affiliation, or ability to pay.
These programs focus on three public-interest goals:
- Expand access to deep science education and authentic research experiences.
- Create serious research opportunities for teenagers and adults outside traditional academic pipelines.
- Build public-interest research infrastructure that supports transparency, reproducibility, and open access to trusted research records.
Our nonprofit programs
The programs below are operated as nonprofit educational and public-interest activities under fiscal sponsorship through NOPI INC, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
SCIENCE OR ELSE
SCIENCE OR ELSE is an interdisciplinary science conference for middle school, high school, and homeschool students.
Teenagers present original research through poster sessions and research talks, meet scientists from academia and industry, and take part in creative science contests in writing, visual art, music, and comedy.
No membership is required to present or attend.
Purpose
SCIENCE OR ELSE gives teenagers a serious public venue for original scientific work. The goal is to help students see science as something they can actively do, question, build, and communicate, not only study from textbooks.
About the conference →Deep Physics Access Programs
Deep Physics brings conceptually rigorous physics education to students in public schools. The focus is not acceleration or test prep, but deeper understanding: helping students see physics the way mature physicists understand it.
Programs may run as after-school enrichment, in-school programs, spring break intensives, or summer programs. They are designed for students with genuine interest in physics who may not otherwise have access to this level of instruction.
Purpose
To expand access to deep physics education that is often unavailable in standard school settings and usually accessible only through expensive private tutoring or specialized private programs.
SoTS Authentic Research Residency
The SoTS Authentic Research Residency is a free, two-semester research program for experienced high-school researchers.
Students work in small teams on open problems at the intersection of AI, modern technology, and science. Each problem is contributed by an external partner, such as a university group, government lab, company, or scientist. With support from a professional Research Guide, each team carries the investigation from scoping to a final deliverable the partner can use.
Admission is selective and based on demonstrated research ability and first-principles reasoning, not on school name, prizes, or ability to pay.
Purpose
To give capable high-school students access to serious research experience and mentorship, while supporting useful public-interest scientific work. Every admitted student participates for free.
About the residency →We Teach
We Teach provides full or partial scholarships for students who cannot reasonably afford authentic research education programs.
Scholarships may support approved program costs and, when needed, reasonable participation-related expenses for in-person or hybrid program components. Scholarship decisions are separate from program admission and are based on financial need, cost burden, available funds, and a written application process.
Purpose
To make authentic research education accessible to students whose families could not otherwise afford it.
We Help Others Teach
We Help Others Teach supports schools, public educational institutions, community colleges, public universities, and nonprofit education organizations that want to build serious research programs for their students.
This may include research-methodology consulting, teacher and mentor training, Research Guide training, responsible-AI-in-research curriculum support, student research program design, and ongoing educational support.
Purpose
To help institutions build lasting capacity for authentic research education, especially where students have limited access to real research mentorship.
We Build Research Infrastructure
We Build Research Infrastructure supports free, open, or public-interest tools that help researchers document research progress, verify claims, preserve contribution history, and create more transparent records of scientific work.
This may include SciRecord public-good registry layers, sciwrite-lint for citation and claim-evidence review, scicode-lint for scientific code and methodology review, and related open documentation or workflows.
Purpose
To strengthen transparency, reproducibility, and trust in research, especially for student researchers, independent researchers, educators, public-interest research communities, and the broader scientific ecosystem.
How we are organized
These nonprofit programs operate under fiscal sponsorship through NOPI INC, the Nonprofit Organization for Philanthropic Initiatives, a Massachusetts nonprofit corporation and 501(c)(3) organization, EIN 81-5089505. Gifts that support these programs may be tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
The Society of Teen Scientists and Authentic Research Partners also operate other educational and research-related work. The programs listed on this page are the nonprofit, fiscally sponsored initiatives.
Authentic Research Partners is fiscally sponsored by the Nonprofit Organization for Philanthropic Initiatives, a program of NOPI INC, a Massachusetts nonprofit corporation and 501(c)(3) organization, EIN 81-5089505. Learn more at https://thenopi.org.
How funds are used
Donations and nonprofit program revenue support student participation, research guides, educational programming, conference operations, materials, public-interest research infrastructure, and access for participants who could not otherwise take part.
Gifts are made through NOPI, a 501(c)(3), and may be tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
For serious minds, wherever they begin.