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The power of human collaboration

A sustained, integrated, focused, and managed global and cross-disciplinary effort is required in order to achieve the reality of a world powered by solar fuels - this kind of concentrated effort has been lacking until now.

SOFI will address that lack by integrating and leveraging 25+30 international labs currently engaged in researching artificial photosynthesis, thereby uniting them into an efficient coordinated research team dedicated to developing solar fuels and supported by sufficient long-term funding. This systemic integration will enable SOFI to achieve our 10-year initiative.

Biologists, chemists, physicists, engineers, and computational scientists are all part of this project. Researchers at laboratories in the United States, Sweden, France, Japan, Germany, China, and ten other countries will focus on developing the science and technology required to implement artificial photosynthesis. Linking such diverse disciplines, and such geographically and institutionally diverse players, requires the foundational understanding, reputation, and neutral meeting facilities that the SOFI Institute provides.

Moreover, SOFI acknowledges that success will demand more than scientific exploration. We recognize that many technical and non-technical barriers must be overcome; these barriers must be identified, assessed, monitored, and addressed. Therefore, unlike other solar consortia, SOFI has launched an ongoing roadmapping and scenario-planning process that collaborates heavily with industry members. This process will not only run contiguously with research, but continually inform SOFI's Management Team and its decisions.