I heard that the Simons Foundation might be a good fit for a direct contribution to OpenRefine. Jim Simons loves pure science and math and the foundation mission. If we could find just 1 scientist who uses or would like to use OpenRefine in their research and it applies to Astrophysics, Biology, Math, Quantum Physics, Life Sciences... then I think we have a chance. However, it likely would have to be done in collab with a scientist, I think, if we were to have a chance?
Maybe a really well done extension that addresses scientific needs better somehow and applying it with our 4.0 architecture. Supporting a single OpenRefine developer and the scientist in a collab over a year or two?