My model for why there’s a big discrepancy between what NIH grantmakers will fund and what Fast Grants recipients want to do is that NIH grantmakers adopt a sort of conservative, paternalistic attitude. I don’t think this is unique to NIH grantmakers. For example, in your comment you wrote:
we want to avoid funding people for independent research when they might do much better in an organization
The person who applies for a grant knows a lot more about their situation than the grantmaker does: their personal psychology, the nature of their research interests, their fit for various organizations. They seem a lot better equipped to make career decisions for themselves than busy grantmakers.
It seems worth considering the possibility that there are psychological dynamics to grantmaking that are inherent in the nature of the activity. Maybe the NIH has just had more time to slide down this slope than EA Funds has.
My model for why there’s a big discrepancy between what NIH grantmakers will fund and what Fast Grants recipients want to do is that NIH grantmakers adopt a sort of conservative, paternalistic attitude. I don’t think this is unique to NIH grantmakers. For example, in your comment you wrote:
The person who applies for a grant knows a lot more about their situation than the grantmaker does: their personal psychology, the nature of their research interests, their fit for various organizations. They seem a lot better equipped to make career decisions for themselves than busy grantmakers.
It seems worth considering the possibility that there are psychological dynamics to grantmaking that are inherent in the nature of the activity. Maybe the NIH has just had more time to slide down this slope than EA Funds has.