We urgently need alternative mechanisms/institutions for research support. This
from @vgr crunches some numbers: what would that cost? Answer: surprisingly little, in the scale of things.https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1195937380210921472 …
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@vgr’s
also covers many of the issues that come up in discussions of alt-research funding and institutions. This is a common, live discussion among people I talk with often. There’s growing momentum and consensus in the conversation, but will it lead to action?3 replies 0 retweets 8 likesShow this thread -
I suspect the central challenge here is to find alternative mechanisms for selecting what research/researchers to fund. How do grantors know their money is being well-spent? Who makes those decisions? Is there a way to do this that doesn’t just replicate the existing pathologies?
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Replying to @Meaningness
Keeping the admin of assessment on the funder and not on the scientists has been useful in the past (DARPA) and I think
@cziscience may be an interesting current case study for this.1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @mrgunn @Meaningness
The effective altruism community has successfully built a mechanism to get SV millionaires to part with their money for their causes.
@tylercowen &@vgr's funding threads seem to be arguing for a kind of "effective science".1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Not really, that’s a bad comparison at least for what I’m getting at. That’s actually what’s kinda slowly choking traditional research (citation numbers, impact factors, patent counts, ROI mentality). I’m thinking more a kind of disciplined narrative-driven visionary romanticism.
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EA does have a strong narrative & vision, so can serve as a useful guide for more romantic efforts in how to get attention. Also, the problem with metrics isn't metrics, but the gap between the metric & what it's a proxy for.
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So if CZI is directing its funding to things aligned with its values, and foundations collectively are also doing so, that reflects the collective will & vision of society. Part of the problem is how vision has been subjugated to metrics, yes, but also how poor the metrics are.
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There seems to be a specificity gap between funders’ “vision” and execution. “We want to use this money to enable innovative scientific research” is not really a vision; it lacks a how. (I know almost nothing about CZI specifically.)
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Maybe they're not the best example of a clear "how", but more central planning of research projects is distinctly different from how most bio research is funded.
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The lottery model is exciting because it *is* innovative and decreases work. But it also seems an abdication of responsibility. Time may tell? Interesting point about CZI’s more-top-down model; I hadn’t thought of this (probably partly because I know so little about them).
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I don't think it's an abdication of responsibility, rather a honest admission that which grants are above the payline is *somewhat* arbitrary, past a minimum threshold of viability/interestingness.
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Replying to @mrgunn @Meaningness and
I recently got a small metascience grant where they threw out the bottom ~1/3rd and awarded the rest by lottery. Made it easier to submit, also avoided the "pick a metric and rank applications because you have to draw a line somewhere" thing.
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