One of the things that I am most concerned about if you were to just move towards recusal, is you just end up in a situation where by necessity the other fund members just have to take the recused person’s word for the grant being good (or you pass up on all the most valuable grant opportunities).
It also seems that the recusal being discussed is quite weak. In my limited experience, recusal means totally vacating oneself from the decision making process. For example, when a SCOTUS Judge recuses himself, he doesn’t take any role in the debate or voting. Similarly, when moderating the EA facebook group, generally conflicted mods won’t argue for a position (though this is just my description of a norm and not an explicit rule we’ve had). If fund members with large conflicts of interest end up de facto making the decision anyway then the COI policy doesn’t seem to have achieved anything.
I would suggest instead that other fund managers research the application and make the decision. This would help avoid an unfair bias towards funding people who are ‘in the community’.
It also seems that the recusal being discussed is quite weak. In my limited experience, recusal means totally vacating oneself from the decision making process. For example, when a SCOTUS Judge recuses himself, he doesn’t take any role in the debate or voting. Similarly, when moderating the EA facebook group, generally conflicted mods won’t argue for a position (though this is just my description of a norm and not an explicit rule we’ve had). If fund members with large conflicts of interest end up de facto making the decision anyway then the COI policy doesn’t seem to have achieved anything.
I would suggest instead that other fund managers research the application and make the decision. This would help avoid an unfair bias towards funding people who are ‘in the community’.