Robyn Dawes Institute for the Improvement of Science
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 334367909
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2025–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990-EZ 2025
- Location
- Berkeley, CA, USA
- Phone
- 6034984487
- Rating
- 77
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Science and Technology N.E.C.
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $81,707
- Expenses
- $37,255
- Assets
- $44,452
- Liabilities
- $0
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
4 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Paul Litvak (President/Director)
- Lily Jampol (Vice President/Director)
People named in this filing
- Paul Litvak (President/Director)
- Don Moore (Treasurer/Director)
- Lily Jampol (Vice President/Director)
Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Robyn Dawes Institute for the Improvement of Science mission is to serve the scientific and academic communities to strengthen the foundation of scientific knowledge by systematically evaluating research quality across disciplines. We harness artificial intelligence to identify both exceptional scholarship and methodological weaknesses, enabling researchers to build upon reliable evidence. We believe that scientific progress depends not only on detecting problematic research, but equally on elevating and amplifying exemplary work. By creating transparent, accessible tools for scientists to assess research quality, we empower the scientific community to accelerate discovery and foster theoretical development based on solid empirical foundations.
What it reported doing in 2025
In its first year of operations, the Robyn Dawes Institute for the Improvement of Science developed and launched Evidence.Guide, an AI-powered API that extracts structured data from scientific researchpapers. The tool converts PDFs into machine-readable JSON containing study hypotheses, sample sizes, test statistics, and p-values which is data essential for meta-analysis and research quality assessment. We validated the system against a benchmark of 297 peer-reviewed psychology papers containing 827statistical tests. The validation study demonstrated 92.4% functional accuracy in extracting statistical hypotheses and p-values, with 100% accuracy in identifying focal hypotheses - performance that meetsbor exceeds typical human inter-rater reliability. The Institute assembled an advisory board of leading reproducibility researchers including Uri Simonsohn (ESADE), Leif Nelson (UC Berkeley), Simine Vazire (Editor-in-Chief of Psychological Science), and Stuart Buck (Good Science Project). We also filed a provisional patent for AI-enabled meta-analytic assessment and established a visiting scholar appointment at UC Berkeley to enable large-scale journal access in 2026.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 100% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 100% of reported program-service expenses outside its grant, affiliate-payment, and member-benefit lines. This expense classification does not rule out separately announced grant awards.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - The filed numbers largely add up and a large share of total spending goes to programs. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 66
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 72
- Growth: NotEnoughData
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 45.6%; rating input score 46
- Program expense ratio: 100%; rating input score 100
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 54.4%; rating input score 91; 91st percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.19; rating input score 52; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 56; 56th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: Limited
- Revenue growth: Limited
- Asset growth: Limited
Details
- Where the money goes: 45.6% of revenue deployed · 100% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 1 filed program accomplishment · $37K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 4 people listed
- Consistency: 9 of 9 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
- People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 46/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 52/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 56/100.