Microalgal Fund for Regenerative Futures

Supporting creators who work with microalgae to imagine, prototype, and share regenerative futures through art, science, and design.

The Microalgal Fund for Regenerative Futures supports artists, scientists, designers, and entrepreneurs who engage microalgae as living collaborators in shaping life-supporting futures. We back work that reveals the quiet power, beauty, and strangeness of these microorganisms—translating microbiology and laboratory practice into public encounters and speculative design. From bioart and biodesign to food futures, biomaterials, and hands-on citizen science, this Fund supports projects that make microalgae legible, inspiring, and felt—inviting people to encounter them not as background life, but as partners in regenerative design.

domain:science-research

Eligibility

This Fund is for creators working where microalgae meet imagination, practice, and systems change. We prioritize projects that open access to microalgal knowledge beyond institutions and create clear, compelling points of encounter with living systems.
To qualify for this fund, projects must meet the following eligibility requirements:
- Microalgae-centered: Microalgae must be central to the project conceptually and/or materially—not decorative or incidental.
- Public-facing: Projects must result in something people can encounter, such as an exhibition, workshop, demonstration, performance, educational tool, product prototype, or open system.
- Legible & inspiring: Work should be engaging and understandable to general audiences without requiring specialized training in microbiology or design.
- Oriented toward regenerative futures: Projects may explore food futures, biomaterials, regenerative design, biodesign, or speculative design approaches that imagine new relationships with living systems.
- Open to diverse creator types:
- Scientists and community researchers advancing citizen science and making microalgal knowledge accessible beyond institutions
- Multimodal creatives (art, design, education, performance, sound) engaging microalgae as subject and medium, including bioart practices
- Entrepreneurs and inventors experimenting with microalgae to develop new products, tools, and systems
- Feasible & responsible: Projects must be achievable within the proposed timeline and demonstrate thoughtful, ethical engagement with living organisms.

Projects (27)

22 submitted · 3 funded · 2 curated

Project	Status	Raised
Living Sounds	funded	$8,437
Museum of Microalgae	funded	$0
The Invisible River: A Micro-Odyssey	funded	$0
Scotland's Red Snows	curated	$0
Watershed	curated	$0
Regen Reef	submitted	$256
FutureZoo	submitted	$215,046
Empowering Youth Through Digital Skills & Innovation	submitted	$6,911
adopt a tree	submitted	$14,777
Living Towers Genesis – Frontier Tower SF	submitted	$14
algae purse and biotextiles	submitted	$0
Greenpill Network - GreenSci	submitted	$398
Reset and Rise	submitted	$0
Voices of the Land	submitted	$19,991
ToGather Project, Documenting Living Systems	submitted	$8,193
Labour Union of Higherdimensional Shapeshifters	submitted	$360
Green Bioconcrete: Bacteria-Driven Mineralization with Embedded Microalgae	submitted	$0
Molecular tools for detecting toxic algae to protect aquaculture	submitted	$0
Jardin Microcosmos	submitted	$20
Akuya	submitted	$234
Snappy GreenLoop - Nappy Waste and Re-Use Services	submitted	$0
Reforest the Future	submitted	$140
CEM1:Cleaning cenotes with effective organisms.	submitted	$10,069
GroFree Composting	submitted	$0
POSITs	submitted	$20
The International Artists Project Documentary	submitted	$563
Iscas Pet Pollinator Network	submitted	$24