It seems like much of what the Global Priorities Institute proposes in their research agenda falls into this category, under the general label of “cause prioritization” rather than “meta-research on how to make progress on causes”. This area may still be neglected in absolute terms, but it seems like one of the areas most esteemed and valued within the EA community. Personally, I would, however, like to see more meta-research of the kind you describe focused on questions like whether the Importance, Tractability, Neglectedness Framework works well as a heuristic for selecting causes where activity is cost-effective and more generally on the psychological influences (e.g. cognitive biases and framing effects) on the cause prioritisation judgements that EAs and others make in practice, but that seems more a question of what meta-research would be valuable rather than whether more of it should take place.
It seems like much of what the Global Priorities Institute proposes in their research agenda falls into this category, under the general label of “cause prioritization” rather than “meta-research on how to make progress on causes”. This area may still be neglected in absolute terms, but it seems like one of the areas most esteemed and valued within the EA community. Personally, I would, however, like to see more meta-research of the kind you describe focused on questions like whether the Importance, Tractability, Neglectedness Framework works well as a heuristic for selecting causes where activity is cost-effective and more generally on the psychological influences (e.g. cognitive biases and framing effects) on the cause prioritisation judgements that EAs and others make in practice, but that seems more a question of what meta-research would be valuable rather than whether more of it should take place.