Claude for scientists: credits for Sloan, Simons, NSF and EMBL

On October 28, Anthropic expanded its AI for Science program, which hands out free Claude credits to researchers working on high-impact scientific projects. Claude for scientists now reaches not only individual researchers but also flows through 20 foundations, institutes and research groups, including the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Simons Foundation, the US National Science Foundation and EMBL.

What’s new here?

The AI for Science program launched in May 2025 and until now gave API credits to individual scientists. Now Anthropic is giving credits to foundations and institutes, which will distribute them among their own researchers. According to Anthropic, the program has already supported hundreds of projects in biology, medicine, physics, chemistry, climate science and mathematics.

The partners fall into three groups:

1. Funders and scientific societies that will hand out credits to researchers: the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Simons Foundation, Schmidt Sciences, the Open Source for Science Fund (a Renaissance Philanthropy program), the US National Science Foundation and CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society.
2. Institutes that will use the credits in-house: the Space Telescope Science Institute (science operations for the Hubble, James Webb and Roman telescopes), the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the Francis Crick Institute, the Faculty of Life Sciences at Imperial College London, EMBL and the Gladstone Institutes.
3. Specific research projects that receive credits directly.

Anthropic doesn’t disclose amounts, so we don’t know how much these credits are actually worth.

Which projects got Claude?

This list is probably the most interesting part, because each of these projects produces open data or tools that the whole scientific community uses:

1. FlyWire (Princeton) – the team that built the first complete wiring map of an adult fruit fly brain.
2. LEAP (Columbia) – an NSF center that combines machine learning with physics so climate models better capture clouds, oceans and land.
3. AstroPath (Johns Hopkins) – cell-by-cell tumor imaging using calibration methods from astronomical sky surveys.
4. gnomAD (Broad Institute) – an open database of human genetic variation built from the DNA of more than 800,000 people, used in rare disease diagnosis.
5. Tau Ceti – a community library of autoformalized mathematics in Lean, a language in which a computer checks every proof.
6. Centre for Population Genomics – a joint initiative of Australia’s Garvan and Murdoch Children’s institutes.

Interestingly, Tau Ceti is the same idea as formal verification with Claude, which I wrote about: proofs checked by a computer, only this time in mathematics rather than code (and in Lean rather than Rocq).

Why is Anthropic working with labs?

Anthropic also points to two earlier projects. With HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus, the company developed the Model Hardware Standard (MHS), a shared specification that lets AI agents safely operate lab instruments (for now as a research preview). The Allen Institute, in turn, is building teams of AI agents to analyze its open datasets, which according to Anthropic cuts months of manual analysis down to hours.

This is Anthropic’s second science move this week. The day before, the company showed Claude’s results in drug discovery and acquired Mithril Medicine.

Claude for scientists: how to get access?

Besides the credits distributed through foundations and institutes, there’s also the Team plan for scientists, which Anthropic launched in recent months. According to the program page:

1. A standard seat costs $0 a month instead of $20, and a premium seat $15 instead of $100.
2. The promotional price applies for 12 months from sign-up, after which seats renew at the current price.
3. Principal investigators (PIs) or people in equivalent roles at accredited universities and non-profit research institutes can apply, including in the natural sciences, mathematics, computer science and engineering. Companies and industry R&D departments don’t qualify.
4. A team can have 1 to 25 seats, and applications are usually reviewed within 5–7 business days.

(check the program page to see whether the offer is still available, since Anthropic notes it is limited)

What to watch out for?

First, the lack of numbers. Anthropic doesn’t say how many credits each partner gets or how the foundations will distribute them.

Second, the stage. According to Anthropic, many of these collaborations are still at an early stage, so results will take a while.

Third, the timing. Anthropic has just filed its prospectus ahead of its Nasdaq listing, so science projects that benefit the whole community also help build the company’s image.

FAQ

Is Claude free for scientists?

Partly. Researchers at partner projects and institutions get free credits, and the Team plan for scientists gives research groups at universities and non-profit institutes standard seats for $0 for 12 months.

What is the AI for Science program?

It’s an Anthropic program launched in May 2025 that gives free Claude credits to researchers working on high-impact scientific projects. Since October 28, 2026, it also covers foundations, institutes and specific research projects.

Which European institutions are in the program?

The announcement lists, among others, EMBL, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the Francis Crick Institute and the Faculty of Life Sciences at Imperial College London.