Dawid Potgieter is the Director of Programs in Discovery Science at the Templeton World Charity Foundation. He is responsible for the Foundation’s new initiatives in the Discovery phase. This includes the Grand Challenges for Human Flourishing a $40M effort to support interdisciplinary scientific research on humans’ cognitive, affective, social, and spiritual well-being. He develops new initiatives and grant proposals in a wide range of areas, such as natural sciences, philosophy, and public outreach activities. In 2018, he launched the Accelerating Research on Consciousness initiative, which involves a $30M commitment from the Foundation to investigate scientific theories of consciousness through adversarial collaboration and by promoting open-science practices.

Dr. Potgieter also serves as Head of Program Management and Continuous Improvement. He leads the Foundation’s efforts to promote best practices in open science. He is also responsible for overseeing changes to policies and procedures, and developing new grantmaking practices to better support discovery science.