Thanks very much for writing this up Sam. Two points from my perspective at the Happier Lives Institute, who you kindly mention and is a new entrant to cause prioritisation work.
First, you say this on theories of change:
But for a new organisation to solely focus on doing the research that they believed would be most useful for improving the world it is unclear what the theory of change would be. Some options are:
Do research → build audience on quality of research → then influence audience
Do research + persuade other organisations to use your research → influence their audiences and money
I think this nails the difficulty for new cause prioritisation research (where ‘new’ means ‘not being done by an existing EA organisation’). The existing organisations are the ‘gatekeepers’ for resources but doing novel cause prioritsation work requires, of necessity, doing work those organisations themselves consider low-priority (otherwise they would do it themselves). This creates a tension: funders often want potential entrants to show they have ‘buy-in’ from existing orgs. But the more novel the project, the less ‘buy-in’ it will have, and so the less chance it gets off the ground. I confess I don’t have a solution for this, other than that, if funders want to see new research, they need to be prepared to back it themselves.
Second, you say you’d like to see research on
unexplored areas that could be highly impactful such as access to painkillers or mental health
I agree that setting up new orgs is really challenging. I think this maybe oversells the difficulty of getting buy in from existing orgs in a way that might unduly put people off trying to set up new projects though.
My main experience with this is setting up the Global Priorities Institute. GPI does fairly different work from other EA orgs (though some overlap with FHI), and is much more foundational/theoretic than typical ones. You might expect that to get extra push back from EAs, given that the theory of change is of necessity less direct than for orgs like openphil. I was in the fortunate position of already working with CEA, which ofc made things easier. And getting funding from OpenPhil was definitely a long process. But I actually found it really helpful. The kind of docs etc they asked for were ones that it was useful for us to produce (for example pinning down our vision going forward, including milestones that would indicate we were or weren’t on track), and their comments on our strategy and work was helpful for improving them.
I think some things that helped, and that others might find useful, were:
Doing a bunch of consultation early on in the process. That improved the idea and the project from the start, and (I expect) meant that others who I hoped would support the project had a better sense of what it was trying to achieve, and that we would be open and responsive to their feedback. This latter seems like it could go some way to allaying people’s worries about new projects, by giving people a sense that if they see a project going wrong in a way they think could end up net negative, the people running it will be keen to hear that and to pivot.
For docs I sent people asking for input, spending time to make sure they were as concise and clear as possible. I find this pretty challenging, and definitely more time consuming than writing longer docs. But it really increases people’s willingness to give comments . I also think it can improve their understanding of the project (because they get a better snapshot for a given time reading) and therefore the usefulness of comments.
Linked to the above, asking for help from people in a really targeted way: trying to find the people who would be most helpful for answering specific questions and improving specific aspects of the project, and then making concrete asks which made clear why they in particular would be helpful for answering this. Using that approach, I was surprised how helpful total strangers were (though this may be partly because academics are used to collaborating with strangers, so are particularly helpful). I think that also had useful knock on effects, because others were happy we were getting (and acting on!) advice from experts.
Something I still find hard, but am trying to do more in my current role, is get input and advice from people who are sceptical as well as those who are broadly supportive. It seems useful to try to really flesh out the strongest versions of concerns with your project, and how to mitigate those. It also seems likely to increase buy in for your project because it shows you’re keen to consider different worldviews and to act on rather than minimise concerns.
Thanks very much for writing this up Sam. Two points from my perspective at the Happier Lives Institute, who you kindly mention and is a new entrant to cause prioritisation work.
First, you say this on theories of change:
I think this nails the difficulty for new cause prioritisation research (where ‘new’ means ‘not being done by an existing EA organisation’). The existing organisations are the ‘gatekeepers’ for resources but doing novel cause prioritsation work requires, of necessity, doing work those organisations themselves consider low-priority (otherwise they would do it themselves). This creates a tension: funders often want potential entrants to show they have ‘buy-in’ from existing orgs. But the more novel the project, the less ‘buy-in’ it will have, and so the less chance it gets off the ground. I confess I don’t have a solution for this, other than that, if funders want to see new research, they need to be prepared to back it themselves.
Second, you say you’d like to see research on
I’m pleased to say HLI is working on both those areas—see our April update.
I agree that setting up new orgs is really challenging. I think this maybe oversells the difficulty of getting buy in from existing orgs in a way that might unduly put people off trying to set up new projects though.
My main experience with this is setting up the Global Priorities Institute. GPI does fairly different work from other EA orgs (though some overlap with FHI), and is much more foundational/theoretic than typical ones. You might expect that to get extra push back from EAs, given that the theory of change is of necessity less direct than for orgs like openphil. I was in the fortunate position of already working with CEA, which ofc made things easier. And getting funding from OpenPhil was definitely a long process. But I actually found it really helpful. The kind of docs etc they asked for were ones that it was useful for us to produce (for example pinning down our vision going forward, including milestones that would indicate we were or weren’t on track), and their comments on our strategy and work was helpful for improving them.
I think some things that helped, and that others might find useful, were:
Doing a bunch of consultation early on in the process. That improved the idea and the project from the start, and (I expect) meant that others who I hoped would support the project had a better sense of what it was trying to achieve, and that we would be open and responsive to their feedback. This latter seems like it could go some way to allaying people’s worries about new projects, by giving people a sense that if they see a project going wrong in a way they think could end up net negative, the people running it will be keen to hear that and to pivot.
For docs I sent people asking for input, spending time to make sure they were as concise and clear as possible. I find this pretty challenging, and definitely more time consuming than writing longer docs. But it really increases people’s willingness to give comments . I also think it can improve their understanding of the project (because they get a better snapshot for a given time reading) and therefore the usefulness of comments.
Linked to the above, asking for help from people in a really targeted way: trying to find the people who would be most helpful for answering specific questions and improving specific aspects of the project, and then making concrete asks which made clear why they in particular would be helpful for answering this. Using that approach, I was surprised how helpful total strangers were (though this may be partly because academics are used to collaborating with strangers, so are particularly helpful). I think that also had useful knock on effects, because others were happy we were getting (and acting on!) advice from experts.
Something I still find hard, but am trying to do more in my current role, is get input and advice from people who are sceptical as well as those who are broadly supportive. It seems useful to try to really flesh out the strongest versions of concerns with your project, and how to mitigate those. It also seems likely to increase buy in for your project because it shows you’re keen to consider different worldviews and to act on rather than minimise concerns.