“It’s hard to find great grants” seems different than “It’s hard to find grants we really like”.
I would expect that most grantmakers (including ones with different perspectives) would agree with this and would find it hard to spend money in useful ways (e.g., I suspect that Nuño might say something similar if he were running the LTFF, though not sure). So while I think your framing is overall slightly more accurate, I feel like it’s okay to phrase it the way I did.
that they’re skeptical of funding independent researchers
I don’t think this characterization is accurate. I think we’re funding a lot of independent researchers, and often think that’s great use of money. In fact, the (I think) LTFF’s highest-rated grant ever was an independent research grant. I think the LTFF managers are saying something more like “doing independent research is really hard (psychologically and intellectually)”, and we want to avoid funding people for independent research when they might do much better in an organization.
Similarly, a poll of Fast Grants recipients found that almost 80% would make major changes to their research program if funders relaxed constraints on what their grants could be used for, suggesting that the preferences of grantmakers can diverge wildly from the preferences of researchers applying for grants.
The context of that (NIH grants) seems very different; I don’t think this supports the thesis “EA Funds grantmakers have different preferences from EA Funds grantseekers”.
I haven’t read Nuño’s post yet (just discovered it now through your comment).
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.
I would expect that most grantmakers (including ones with different perspectives) would agree with this and would find it hard to spend money in useful ways (e.g., I suspect that Nuño might say something similar if he were running the LTFF, though not sure). So while I think your framing is overall slightly more accurate, I feel like it’s okay to phrase it the way I did.
I don’t think this characterization is accurate. I think we’re funding a lot of independent researchers, and often think that’s great use of money. In fact, the (I think) LTFF’s highest-rated grant ever was an independent research grant. I think the LTFF managers are saying something more like “doing independent research is really hard (psychologically and intellectually)”, and we want to avoid funding people for independent research when they might do much better in an organization.
The context of that (NIH grants) seems very different; I don’t think this supports the thesis “EA Funds grantmakers have different preferences from EA Funds grantseekers”.
I haven’t read Nuño’s post yet (just discovered it now through your comment).
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.