Thank you for this extremely detailed and interesting work! Are you planning to publish some or all of these write ups in academic journals? I think that this sort of work could potentially have a somewhat increased impact on relevant future decisions and behaviours (e.g., what to fund/​research/​implement as policy) if credibly packaged within a peer reviewed academic publication. It might also add more credibility to RP outside of EA contexts.
Thanks for the kind words. There’s no current plan to pursue academic publication. This question comes up periodically at Rethink Priorities, and there’s a bit of disagreement about what the right strategy is here. Speaking personally, I would love to see more of my work published academically. However, thinking about strategic decisions like these is not my comparative advantage, so I’m happy to defer to others on this question, and leadership at Rethink Priorities generally isn’t keen on using researcher hours to pursue academic publication. The main reason is the time cost. According to the prevailing view at Rethink Priorities, the time cost of pursuing publication normally doesn’t outweigh the benefits of widening the audience and earning credibility for the organization. Of course, there are exceptions: if there are special reasons to publish academically (e.g., fielding-building for welfare biology) or converting a report into an academic publication would take an unusually short time, then it might be worth it.
For now, the most plausible means by which my research will get published academically is through collaboration with others. For example, Bob Fischer recently generously offered to co-author a paper with me based on my report about differences in the subjective experience of time across species, which is now under review. He was thus able to significantly reduce the time burden on me. Naturally, I’m very open to collaboration with others in a similar vein.
Thanks Jason, that’s really useful context! I have some related interested in building better networks and processes for crafting mutually beneficial arrangements between people paid to publish (i.e., academics) and those who are paid only to do the research but will gain from getting it published (i.e., practice based researchers). It is pretty much a scaled up version of what you did with Bob. I am exploring a few options now and I hope to have more to report in the future.
Thank you for this extremely detailed and interesting work! Are you planning to publish some or all of these write ups in academic journals? I think that this sort of work could potentially have a somewhat increased impact on relevant future decisions and behaviours (e.g., what to fund/​research/​implement as policy) if credibly packaged within a peer reviewed academic publication. It might also add more credibility to RP outside of EA contexts.
Hey Peter,
Thanks for the kind words. There’s no current plan to pursue academic publication. This question comes up periodically at Rethink Priorities, and there’s a bit of disagreement about what the right strategy is here. Speaking personally, I would love to see more of my work published academically. However, thinking about strategic decisions like these is not my comparative advantage, so I’m happy to defer to others on this question, and leadership at Rethink Priorities generally isn’t keen on using researcher hours to pursue academic publication. The main reason is the time cost. According to the prevailing view at Rethink Priorities, the time cost of pursuing publication normally doesn’t outweigh the benefits of widening the audience and earning credibility for the organization. Of course, there are exceptions: if there are special reasons to publish academically (e.g., fielding-building for welfare biology) or converting a report into an academic publication would take an unusually short time, then it might be worth it.
For now, the most plausible means by which my research will get published academically is through collaboration with others. For example, Bob Fischer recently generously offered to co-author a paper with me based on my report about differences in the subjective experience of time across species, which is now under review. He was thus able to significantly reduce the time burden on me. Naturally, I’m very open to collaboration with others in a similar vein.
Thanks Jason, that’s really useful context! I have some related interested in building better networks and processes for crafting mutually beneficial arrangements between people paid to publish (i.e., academics) and those who are paid only to do the research but will gain from getting it published (i.e., practice based researchers). It is pretty much a scaled up version of what you did with Bob. I am exploring a few options now and I hope to have more to report in the future.
Oh nice, that sounds really cool—definitely keep me updated!