We’ve tried to approach scientific research funding – focusing initially on life sciences – by looking for gaps and deficiencies in the current system for supporting scientific research. We’ve identified several possibilities, including a set of systematic issues that make it difficult to support attempts at breakthrough fundamental science. One way to respond to a…
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Breakthrough fundamental science
We’ve been looking for gaps in the world of scientific research funding: areas that the existing system doesn’t put enough investment into, leaving potential opportunities to do unusually large amounts of good with philanthropic funding. We previously wrote about the alleged “valley of death” that makes it challenging to translate academic insights about biology into…
Translational science and the “valley of death”
As we’ve looked for potential gaps in the world of scientific research funding – focusing for now on life sciences – we’ve come across many suggestions to look at the “valley of death” that sits between traditional academic research and industry research. Speaking very broadly, the basic idea is that: The world of life sciences…
Investigating neglected goals in scientific research
A major goal of the Open Philanthropy Project is to explore the topic of scientific research funding, starting with life sciences. This post discusses the process we’ve used so far, including some of the challenges we’ve faced and changes we’ve made in our investigation methods: We first discuss some of the general challenges of finding…
Open Philanthropy Project: Progress in 2014 and plans for 2015
This is the fourth post (of six) we’re planning to make focused on our self-evaluation and future plans. We’re in the midst of finalizing detailed updates on Open Philanthropy Project progress and plans. This post gives a high-level summary, comparing our progress and stage of development with what we hoped for as of a year…
Open Philanthropy Project update: Global catastrophic risks
This post lays out our progress, since last year, on identifying potential focus areas for our work on global catastrophic risks. SummaryNote: this section is similar to the introduction of our previous post on U.S. policy. The overall approach of our work has evolved similarly in the two areas. Last year, we set a “stretch…