Let’s Fund helps you discover, learn about and fund breakthrough research, policy and advocacy projects.
We’re Hauke (formerly at CEA and the Center for Global Development) and Henry (software engineer, founder of EA Work Club). We created Let’s Fund as an alternative to “safe” donation options – to find high-risk, high-reward projects that are in need of more funding.
Our first crowdfunding campaign, Let’s Fund #1, is now online. We’re raising funds for Professor Chris Chambers at Cardiff University. Chambers is a leading proponent of a new and better way of doing and publishing research, called ‘Registered Reports’, where scientific papers are peer-reviewed before the results are known.
This might:
make science more theory-driven, open and transparent
find methodological weaknesses prior to publication
get more papers published that fail to confirm the original hypothesis
increase the credibility of non-randomized natural experiments using observational data
The funds will free up his time to focus on accelerating the widespread adoption of Registered Reports by leading scientific journals.
This ‘meta-research’ project might be exceptionally high-impact because we can cause a paradigm shift in scientific culture, where Registered Reports become the gold standard for hypothesis-driven science.
We want to move money to effective projects and spread EA memes. We give people an option to donate to high-risk, high-reward projects over established, risk-averse charities outside the mainstream EA cause areas. It’s also for those people who want to learn about where their money goes in advance.
We are looking for help from the EA community. In particular, we’re looking for:
Announcing: “Lets-Fund.org: High-Impact Crowdfunding campaigns” & “Let’s Fund #1: A (small) scientific Revolution”
Our website:
http://www.lets-fund.org
What is Let’s Fund?
Let’s Fund helps you discover, learn about and fund breakthrough research, policy and advocacy projects.
We’re Hauke (formerly at CEA and the Center for Global Development) and Henry (software engineer, founder of EA Work Club). We created Let’s Fund as an alternative to “safe” donation options – to find high-risk, high-reward projects that are in need of more funding.
Our first crowdfunding campaign, Let’s Fund #1, is now online. We’re raising funds for Professor Chris Chambers at Cardiff University. Chambers is a leading proponent of a new and better way of doing and publishing research, called ‘Registered Reports’, where scientific papers are peer-reviewed before the results are known.
This might:
make science more theory-driven, open and transparent
find methodological weaknesses prior to publication
get more papers published that fail to confirm the original hypothesis
increase the credibility of non-randomized natural experiments using observational data
The funds will free up his time to focus on accelerating the widespread adoption of Registered Reports by leading scientific journals.
This ‘meta-research’ project might be exceptionally high-impact because we can cause a paradigm shift in scientific culture, where Registered Reports become the gold standard for hypothesis-driven science.
Check out our website to read our in-depth research on the value of science funding, meta-research, discussion of Registered Reports advocacy, and a cost-effectiveness estimate of Chris Chambers’ advocacy efforts.
Project Rationale
We want to move money to effective projects and spread EA memes. We give people an option to donate to high-risk, high-reward projects over established, risk-averse charities outside the mainstream EA cause areas. It’s also for those people who want to learn about where their money goes in advance.
We are looking for help from the EA community. In particular, we’re looking for:
Concrete feedback on our research
High-level feedback on our first project in particular
High-level feedback about the idea of Let’s Fund in general
Donations to our first project
Help in promoting our first campaign
We are happy to answer any questions there or in the comments below.