One thing you didn’t mention is grant evaluation. I personally do not mind grants being given out somewhat quickly and freely in the beginning of a project. But before somebody asks for money again, they should need to have their last grant evaluated to see whether it accomplished anything. My sense is that this is not common (or thorough) enough, even for bigger grants. I think as the movement gets bigger, this seems pretty likely to lead to unaccountability.
Maybe more happens behind the scenes than I realize though, and there actually is a lot more evaluation than I think.
There should also be more transparency about how funding decisions are made, now that very substantial budgets are available. We don’t want to find out at some point that many funding decisions have been made on less-than-objective grounds.
EA funding has reached a level where ‘evaluating evaluations’ should soon become an important project.
One thing you didn’t mention is grant evaluation. I personally do not mind grants being given out somewhat quickly and freely in the beginning of a project. But before somebody asks for money again, they should need to have their last grant evaluated to see whether it accomplished anything. My sense is that this is not common (or thorough) enough, even for bigger grants. I think as the movement gets bigger, this seems pretty likely to lead to unaccountability.
Maybe more happens behind the scenes than I realize though, and there actually is a lot more evaluation than I think.
There should also be more transparency about how funding decisions are made, now that very substantial budgets are available. We don’t want to find out at some point that many funding decisions have been made on less-than-objective grounds.
EA funding has reached a level where ‘evaluating evaluations’ should soon become an important project.