Thanks for your comments and your interest in WAI’s work!
While we agree that an established field should focus on helping the most abundant animals, we also agree with WAI’s reasoning that while building the field, having a singular focus on optimizing for the number of animals would come at the expense of other strategic field-building goals.
We address this in WAI’s review, e.g., here: “Though not all grants funded have a very high scope, this aligns with WAI’s long-term strategy that balances maximizing immediate impact with building a diverse and engaged scientific field. This dual strategy is based on sound reasoning and endorsed by several experts we spoke to.”
Thanks! To clarify, I agree WAI should be supporting projects which do not target soil sprintails, mites, and nematodes (the most abundant land animals). I just think WAI should have supported projects targeting invertebrates with more than 9.39 % of the granted funds, and supported ones targeting sprintails, mites, and nematodes with more than 0 % of the granted funds. What do you think is the strongest empirical evidence for these fractions being close to optimal besides expert views per se (the empirical evidence could still have been provided by experts)?
We think WAI’s grantmaking criteria—such as Neglectedness, Scope, and Impact—are explicitly designed to prioritize cost-effectiveness and maximize counterfactual impact for large numbers of animals. Beyond that, their distribution may be limited by the types of projects they receive suitable applications from.
Beyond that, their distribution may be limited by the types of projects they receive suitable applications from.
It sounds like you are not confident about what is limiting WAI’s grantmaking to projects targeting invertebrates, in particular, soil springtails, mites, and nematodes, given you said “may be limited”? Have you investigated how much WAI has tried to get applicants to work on soil springtails, mites, and nematodes?
Thanks for your comments and your interest in WAI’s work!
While we agree that an established field should focus on helping the most abundant animals, we also agree with WAI’s reasoning that while building the field, having a singular focus on optimizing for the number of animals would come at the expense of other strategic field-building goals.
We address this in WAI’s review, e.g., here: “Though not all grants funded have a very high scope, this aligns with WAI’s long-term strategy that balances maximizing immediate impact with building a diverse and engaged scientific field. This dual strategy is based on sound reasoning and endorsed by several experts we spoke to.”
Thanks! To clarify, I agree WAI should be supporting projects which do not target soil sprintails, mites, and nematodes (the most abundant land animals). I just think WAI should have supported projects targeting invertebrates with more than 9.39 % of the granted funds, and supported ones targeting sprintails, mites, and nematodes with more than 0 % of the granted funds. What do you think is the strongest empirical evidence for these fractions being close to optimal besides expert views per se (the empirical evidence could still have been provided by experts)?
We think WAI’s grantmaking criteria—such as Neglectedness, Scope, and Impact—are explicitly designed to prioritize cost-effectiveness and maximize counterfactual impact for large numbers of animals. Beyond that, their distribution may be limited by the types of projects they receive suitable applications from.
I definitely like WAI’s criteria.
It sounds like you are not confident about what is limiting WAI’s grantmaking to projects targeting invertebrates, in particular, soil springtails, mites, and nematodes, given you said “may be limited”? Have you investigated how much WAI has tried to get applicants to work on soil springtails, mites, and nematodes?