I explicitly acknowledged your stated strategy and the need for foundational research. My question is when you expect that strategy to translate into real-world impact.
To move this forward, let’s try to crystallise what you’ve said:
1. What exactly counts as a self-sustaining academic field for wild animal welfare?
Is that defined by number of labs? Funding sources? Course offerings? Publication volume? ‘Self-sustaining’ risks becoming an unending horizon.
2. What does ‘the long run’ mean in practice?
A strategy without a time-bound target is very difficult to evaluate. Is the honest answer simply ‘as long as it takes’? As long as people are willing to fund it?
3. How much funding do you estimate is required to reach this self-sustaining point?
If the answer is ‘we don’t know’, that’s fine—but then we need some proxy indicators or budget ranges that would count as reasonable expectations.
Is the reality that donors are effectively funding an open-ended research project with no agreed stopping rule? Your answers make it hard not to reach that conclusion.
I’m not trying to exhaust you with relentless questions. I’m trying to separate the wheat from the chaff in what you’ve said. Long replies run the risk of diverting away from the central thrust of discussion.
I explicitly acknowledged your stated strategy and the need for foundational research. My question is when you expect that strategy to translate into real-world impact.
To move this forward, let’s try to crystallise what you’ve said:
1. What exactly counts as a self-sustaining academic field for wild animal welfare?
Is that defined by number of labs? Funding sources? Course offerings? Publication volume? ‘Self-sustaining’ risks becoming an unending horizon.
2. What does ‘the long run’ mean in practice?
A strategy without a time-bound target is very difficult to evaluate. Is the honest answer simply ‘as long as it takes’? As long as people are willing to fund it?
3. How much funding do you estimate is required to reach this self-sustaining point?
If the answer is ‘we don’t know’, that’s fine—but then we need some proxy indicators or budget ranges that would count as reasonable expectations.
Is the reality that donors are effectively funding an open-ended research project with no agreed stopping rule? Your answers make it hard not to reach that conclusion.
I’m not trying to exhaust you with relentless questions. I’m trying to separate the wheat from the chaff in what you’ve said. Long replies run the risk of diverting away from the central thrust of discussion.