Thanks! I’m actually not surprised that the quality of grant applications might be increasing e.g. due to people learning more about what makes for a good grant.
I have a follow-on question. Do you think that the increase in the size of the grant requests is justified? Is this because people are being more ambitious in what they want to do?
(To be clear, I think it’s mostly just that we have more applications, and less that the mean application is significantly better than before.)
In several cases increased grant requests reflect larger projects or requests for funding for longer time periods. We’ve also definitely had a marked increase in the average individual salary request per year—setting aside whether this is justified, this runs into a bunch of thorny issues around secondary effects that we’ve been discussing this round. I think we’re likely to prioritize having a more standardized policy for individual salaries by next grant round.
We also did a lot more promotion and encouraged more people to submit promising applications, and this plausibly also caused more people to apply – so it may be faster-than-organic growth.
Thanks! I’m actually not surprised that the quality of grant applications might be increasing e.g. due to people learning more about what makes for a good grant.
I have a follow-on question. Do you think that the increase in the size of the grant requests is justified? Is this because people are being more ambitious in what they want to do?
(To be clear, I think it’s mostly just that we have more applications, and less that the mean application is significantly better than before.)
In several cases increased grant requests reflect larger projects or requests for funding for longer time periods. We’ve also definitely had a marked increase in the average individual salary request per year—setting aside whether this is justified, this runs into a bunch of thorny issues around secondary effects that we’ve been discussing this round. I think we’re likely to prioritize having a more standardized policy for individual salaries by next grant round.
We also did a lot more promotion and encouraged more people to submit promising applications, and this plausibly also caused more people to apply – so it may be faster-than-organic growth.