The best way to answer this question is probably in terms of GCRI’s three major areas of activity: research, outreach, and community support, plus the fourth item of organization development.
GCRI’s ultimate goal is to reduce global catastrophic risk. Everything we do is oriented toward that end. Our research develops ideas and reduces uncertainty about how best to reduce global catastrophic risk. Our outreach gets those ideas to important decision-makers and helps us understand what research questions decision-makers would benefit from answers to. Our community support advances the overall population of people working on global catastrophic risk, including people who work with us on research and outreach. Our organization development work provides us with the capacity to do all of these things.
Phrased in terms of three problems: (1) We don’t know the best ways of reducing global catastrophic risk, and so we are advancing research to understand this better. (2) We are not positioned to take all of the necessary actions to reduce global catastrophic risk on our own, so we are doing outreach to other people who are well positioned to have an impact and we are supporting the overall community of people who are working on the risks. (3) We don’t have the capacity to do as much to reduce global catastrophic risk as we could, so we are developing the organization to increase our capacity.
I appreciate that this is all perhaps a bit vague. Because we work across so many topics within global catastrophic risk, it’s hard to specify three more specific problems that we face. Some further detail is available at our Summary of 2021-2022 GCRI Accomplishments, Plans, and Fundraising, and in other comments on this AMA.
What are the 3 biggest problems currently slowing GCRI in achieving its goals? What are you currently doing to solve them?
The best way to answer this question is probably in terms of GCRI’s three major areas of activity: research, outreach, and community support, plus the fourth item of organization development.
GCRI’s ultimate goal is to reduce global catastrophic risk. Everything we do is oriented toward that end. Our research develops ideas and reduces uncertainty about how best to reduce global catastrophic risk. Our outreach gets those ideas to important decision-makers and helps us understand what research questions decision-makers would benefit from answers to. Our community support advances the overall population of people working on global catastrophic risk, including people who work with us on research and outreach. Our organization development work provides us with the capacity to do all of these things.
Phrased in terms of three problems: (1) We don’t know the best ways of reducing global catastrophic risk, and so we are advancing research to understand this better. (2) We are not positioned to take all of the necessary actions to reduce global catastrophic risk on our own, so we are doing outreach to other people who are well positioned to have an impact and we are supporting the overall community of people who are working on the risks. (3) We don’t have the capacity to do as much to reduce global catastrophic risk as we could, so we are developing the organization to increase our capacity.
I appreciate that this is all perhaps a bit vague. Because we work across so many topics within global catastrophic risk, it’s hard to specify three more specific problems that we face. Some further detail is available at our Summary of 2021-2022 GCRI Accomplishments, Plans, and Fundraising, and in other comments on this AMA.