We’ve started working on this [making some application public], but no promises. My guess is that making public the rejected applications is more valuable than accepted ones, eg on Manifund. Note that grantees also have the option to upload their applications as well (and there are less privacy concerns if grantees choose to reveal this information).
Manifund already has quite a good infrastructure for sharing grants. However, have you considered asking applicants to post a public version of their applications on EA Forum? People who prefer to remain anonymous could use an anonymous account, and anonymise the public version of their grant. At a higher cost, there would be a new class of posts[1] which would mimic some of the features of Manifund, but this is not strictly necessary. The posts with the applications could simply be tagged appropriately (with new tags created for the purpose), and include a standardised section with some key information, like the requested amount of funding, and the status of the grant (which could be changed over time editing the post).
The idea above is inspired by some thoughts from Hauke Hillebrandt.
Grantees are obviously welcome to do this. That said, my guess is that this will make the forum less enjoyable/useful for the average reader, rather than more.
I think a dedicated area would minimise the negative impact on people that aren’t interested whilst potentially adding value (to prospective applicants in understanding what did and didn’t get accepted, and possibly also to grant assessors if there was occasional additional insight offered by commenters)
I ’d expect there would be some details of some applications that wouldn’t be appropriate to share on a public forum though
Right, but they have not been doing it. So I assume EA Funds would have to at least encourage applicants to do it, or even make it a requirement for most applications. There can be confidential information in some applications, but, as you said below, applicants do not have to share everything in their public version.
That said, my guess is that this will make the forum less enjoyable/useful for the average reader, rather than more.
I guess the opposite, but I do not know. I am mostly in favour of experimenting with a few applications, and then deciding whether to stop or scale up.
Manifund already has quite a good infrastructure for sharing grants. However, have you considered asking applicants to post a public version of their applications on EA Forum? People who prefer to remain anonymous could use an anonymous account, and anonymise the public version of their grant. At a higher cost, there would be a new class of posts[1] which would mimic some of the features of Manifund, but this is not strictly necessary. The posts with the applications could simply be tagged appropriately (with new tags created for the purpose), and include a standardised section with some key information, like the requested amount of funding, and the status of the grant (which could be changed over time editing the post).
The idea above is inspired by some thoughts from Hauke Hillebrandt.
As of now, there are 3 types, normal posts, question posts and linkposts/crossposts.
Grantees are obviously welcome to do this. That said, my guess is that this will make the forum less enjoyable/useful for the average reader, rather than more.
I think a dedicated area would minimise the negative impact on people that aren’t interested whilst potentially adding value (to prospective applicants in understanding what did and didn’t get accepted, and possibly also to grant assessors if there was occasional additional insight offered by commenters)
I ’d expect there would be some details of some applications that wouldn’t be appropriate to share on a public forum though
Hopefully grantees can opt-in/out as appropriate! They don’t need so share everything.
Right, but they have not been doing it. So I assume EA Funds would have to at least encourage applicants to do it, or even make it a requirement for most applications. There can be confidential information in some applications, but, as you said below, applicants do not have to share everything in their public version.
I guess the opposite, but I do not know. I am mostly in favour of experimenting with a few applications, and then deciding whether to stop or scale up.