I don’t think this is centrally about “researchers”, but about “people-who-are-decent-at-working-out-what-to-do-amongst-the-innumerable-possibilities”
[...] research is one of the [...] (major) applications of such people, but far from the only one
Other than research, what do you see as fitting in this category? I’d guess it includes grantmaking, and making high-level/strategic organisation decisions. And I’d guess it wouldn’t include working out which accounting firm an organisation should use. But I’m unsure about both of those guesses, and especially about things “in between” them.
Perhaps you mean something like “people who are decent at working out what strategies and interventions we should pursue amongst the innumerable possibilities”? (As opposed to what fine-grained decisions individual people/orgs should make on a day to day level.)
I think that this can be significantly complementary to people spending part of their career outside of EA orgs.
I’m not sure I know what you mean by this (as you anticipate!). Is it about the research scholars themselves spending part of their career before or after RSP outside of EA orgs? Or about the research scholars complementing other people working elsewhere?
Is it about the research scholars themselves spending part of their career before or after RSP outside of EA orgs?
Roughly, yes. e.g. I think several people currently at RSP have had some career outside first, and I think that they are typically deriving some real benefit from that (i.e. RSP is providing a complement rather than a substitute for the experience they have already).
(Not claiming that RSP is only for people with such experience!)
Perhaps you mean something like “people who are decent at working out what strategies and interventions we should pursue amongst the innumerable possibilities”? (As opposed to what fine-grained decisions individual people/orgs should make on a day to day level.)
Yes, I think that’s mostly a better characterisation.
(There’s definitely some grey area, as e.g. I think that people who are good at the thing I’m pointing to are in touch with the reasons behind a choice of intervention, in a way that feeds into some of the decisions about how to implement it on a day-to-day level.)
Thanks for that interesting response!
Other than research, what do you see as fitting in this category? I’d guess it includes grantmaking, and making high-level/strategic organisation decisions. And I’d guess it wouldn’t include working out which accounting firm an organisation should use. But I’m unsure about both of those guesses, and especially about things “in between” them.
Perhaps you mean something like “people who are decent at working out what strategies and interventions we should pursue amongst the innumerable possibilities”? (As opposed to what fine-grained decisions individual people/orgs should make on a day to day level.)
I’m not sure I know what you mean by this (as you anticipate!). Is it about the research scholars themselves spending part of their career before or after RSP outside of EA orgs? Or about the research scholars complementing other people working elsewhere?
Roughly, yes. e.g. I think several people currently at RSP have had some career outside first, and I think that they are typically deriving some real benefit from that (i.e. RSP is providing a complement rather than a substitute for the experience they have already).
(Not claiming that RSP is only for people with such experience!)
Yes, I think that’s mostly a better characterisation.
(There’s definitely some grey area, as e.g. I think that people who are good at the thing I’m pointing to are in touch with the reasons behind a choice of intervention, in a way that feeds into some of the decisions about how to implement it on a day-to-day level.)