The Unjournal works to organize and fund public journal-independent feedback, rating, and evaluation of hosted papers and dynamically-presented research projects. Their initial focus: quantitative work that informs global priorities, especially in economics, policy, and social science. They aim to encourage better research by making it easier for researchers to get feedback and credible ratings on their work. The Unjournal was started by David Reinstein, gaining a grant from The Long Term Future fund (forwarded from ACK) in early 2022.
Their theory of change/theory of impact, for advancing global priorities (taken from [here](https://effective-giving-marketing.gitbook.io/unjournal-x-ea-and-global-priorities-research/benefits-and-features/global-priorities-theory-of-change; see link for mapping) is stated as involving:
-
Faster and better feedback on impactful research improving this work, and better informing policymakers and philanthropists (Yellow path)
-
Processes and incentives to foster ties between mainstream/prominent/academic/policy researchers and global-priorities/EA-focused researchers. This will improve the rigor, credibility, exposure, and influence of previously ‘EA niche’ work, while helping mainstream researchers better understand and incorporate ideas, principles and methods from the EA and rationalist research communities (counterfactual impact, cause-neutrality, reasoning transparency, etc.)
-
This process will also nudge mainstream academics towards focusing on impact and global priorities, and towards making their research and outputs more accessible and useable.
-
The Unjournal’s more efficient, open, and flexible processes will become attractive to academics and stakeholders. As we become better at ‘predicting publication outcomes’, we will become a replacement for traditional processes, improving research overall (some of which will be highly impactful research)