I was taking the difference to be that scholarships are more about funding individuals rather than organisations, and perhaps even individuals without a project in mind.
I agree that a decent-sized fund that awards seed grants + expansion grants to EA projects is a good idea, as per my comment.
I’m less sure about funding individuals, though I could see myself being persuaded. Funding individuals might be better for high-variance long-shots e.g. see this for a little evidence:
http://pazoulay.scripts.mit.edu/docs/hhmi.pdf
Also it’s plausible there’s people out there who we trust due to their participation in the community, but who can’t get funded by existing mechanisms (because those existing mechanisms don’t trust them), so are funding-constrained. e.g. paying for someone in the community to do some valuable self-development or training.
Finally, if made high-prestige enough, it could be a good way to generate career capital for people we want to back.
Though, for all of this, you’d need a good mechanism for selecting the right people!
I was taking the difference to be that scholarships are more about funding individuals rather than organisations, and perhaps even individuals without a project in mind.
I agree that a decent-sized fund that awards seed grants + expansion grants to EA projects is a good idea, as per my comment.
I’m less sure about funding individuals, though I could see myself being persuaded. Funding individuals might be better for high-variance long-shots e.g. see this for a little evidence: http://pazoulay.scripts.mit.edu/docs/hhmi.pdf Also it’s plausible there’s people out there who we trust due to their participation in the community, but who can’t get funded by existing mechanisms (because those existing mechanisms don’t trust them), so are funding-constrained. e.g. paying for someone in the community to do some valuable self-development or training. Finally, if made high-prestige enough, it could be a good way to generate career capital for people we want to back. Though, for all of this, you’d need a good mechanism for selecting the right people!