Great post, I have heard the same observations before (I live in Brussels). The examples you give are spot on. It is very very difficult to change EU policy on a political level, but I have heard of people working in the commission for less than 4 years being responsible for determining how to distribute millions of euros of developmental aid. Just having a person who asks “can I see the evidence behind the different interventions?” would make a massive difference.
In this context, I sometimes one if the single biggest opportunity is not to turn many more EU administrators into EA’s—or at least, to expose them to EA thinking. They are mostly very smart people, mostly motivated to make the world better. They tend to be very quantitatively competent (the entrance exam requires it for many roles).
If you were to ask yourself where you might find a cohort of people more suited to being impactful EA’s, it would be hard to find one.
Unlike many bureaucracies, most EU staffers are not hardened cynics or party hacks. They mostly did an exam soon after graduation while they were still idealistic.
From your experience, do you know if there is much effort in this direction. Do EU staff get exposed to EA thinking in a positive way? Or in any way at all? Is there room for an impactful program to improve this?
You say there are only about two dozen EA or EA-adjacent people out of 32,000. That is tiny. Imagine if we could increase that number to 1% - somehow communicate with the people enough to convince 1% of them to start thinking like an EA. People like Rutger Bregman who have a lot of credibility outside the EA community could help.
It feels like turning EU Administrators into EA’s could be a highly effective, tractable, impactful and neglected opportunity.
Interesting idea—there is not a lot of effort in this direction (though there was just an ‘introductory’ EA summit last weekend in Brussels, not targeted at EU officials), and generally low awareness of or exposure to EA thinking.
Overall, I’m not sure how feasible it really is to convince people of EA thinking to the extent that they would base their future career decisions and choice of policy area on EA considerations. Some of us have spoken to friends in the commission about EA and while many are quite open and curious, none of them have really changed their policy area based on EA principles.
I agree this is probably the status and that it’s not an easy sell.
But I still think there must be a way. Once you start thinking like an EA, it’s hard to go back to ineffective thinking; it just doesn’t make sense. So surely the kind of people who get through the EU concours should be the kind of people who would think that way if we could just get them started ..
I’m thinking about what I could do in this area with my own EU mates.
Great post, I have heard the same observations before (I live in Brussels). The examples you give are spot on. It is very very difficult to change EU policy on a political level, but I have heard of people working in the commission for less than 4 years being responsible for determining how to distribute millions of euros of developmental aid. Just having a person who asks “can I see the evidence behind the different interventions?” would make a massive difference.
In this context, I sometimes one if the single biggest opportunity is not to turn many more EU administrators into EA’s—or at least, to expose them to EA thinking. They are mostly very smart people, mostly motivated to make the world better. They tend to be very quantitatively competent (the entrance exam requires it for many roles).
If you were to ask yourself where you might find a cohort of people more suited to being impactful EA’s, it would be hard to find one.
Unlike many bureaucracies, most EU staffers are not hardened cynics or party hacks. They mostly did an exam soon after graduation while they were still idealistic.
From your experience, do you know if there is much effort in this direction. Do EU staff get exposed to EA thinking in a positive way? Or in any way at all? Is there room for an impactful program to improve this?
You say there are only about two dozen EA or EA-adjacent people out of 32,000. That is tiny. Imagine if we could increase that number to 1% - somehow communicate with the people enough to convince 1% of them to start thinking like an EA. People like Rutger Bregman who have a lot of credibility outside the EA community could help.
It feels like turning EU Administrators into EA’s could be a highly effective, tractable, impactful and neglected opportunity.
Interesting idea—there is not a lot of effort in this direction (though there was just an ‘introductory’ EA summit last weekend in Brussels, not targeted at EU officials), and generally low awareness of or exposure to EA thinking.
Overall, I’m not sure how feasible it really is to convince people of EA thinking to the extent that they would base their future career decisions and choice of policy area on EA considerations. Some of us have spoken to friends in the commission about EA and while many are quite open and curious, none of them have really changed their policy area based on EA principles.
I both agree and disagree.
I agree this is probably the status and that it’s not an easy sell.
But I still think there must be a way. Once you start thinking like an EA, it’s hard to go back to ineffective thinking; it just doesn’t make sense. So surely the kind of people who get through the EU concours should be the kind of people who would think that way if we could just get them started ..
I’m thinking about what I could do in this area with my own EU mates.