The way I approach the role, it involves thinking deeply about what technical research we want to see in the world and why, and trying to articulate that to potential grantees (in one-on-one conversations, posts like this one, RFPs, talks at conferences, etc) so that they can form a fine-grained understanding of how we’re thinking about the core problems and where their research interests overlap with Open Phil’s philanthropic goals in the space. To do this well, it’s really valuable to have a good grip on the existing work in the relevant area(s).
The way I approach the role, it involves thinking deeply about what technical research we want to see in the world and why, and trying to articulate that to potential grantees (in one-on-one conversations, posts like this one, RFPs, talks at conferences, etc) so that they can form a fine-grained understanding of how we’re thinking about the core problems and where their research interests overlap with Open Phil’s philanthropic goals in the space. To do this well, it’s really valuable to have a good grip on the existing work in the relevant area(s).