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  • What is global-priorities-relevant research?
  • "Pivotal questions"
    • ‘Operationalizable’ questions
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On this page
  • A candidate description/definition; 'direct global impact of research'
  • Others' takes on this question, resources...
  • Syllabi
  • EA-linked
  • Other representative and relevant syllabi
  • Funder/organization research agendas
  • Global Priorities Institute research agenda (2020)
  • Open Philanthropy
  • Other agendas and discussions
  • General advice
  • Psychology and well-being
  • Economics: overviews and prioritization exercises
  • Reinstein's slides/outline of this field and opportunities
  • See also (internal/Unjournal discussions)

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What is global-priorities-relevant research?

PreviousRecap: submissionsNext"Pivotal questions"

Last updated 9 months ago

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On this page we link to and discuss on answers to the questions, Which research is most impactful? Which research should be prioritized?

At The Unjournal, we are open to various approaches to the issues of "what is the most impactful research"? Perhaps looking at some of the research, we have already evaluated and research we are prioritizing (public link coming soon) will give you some insights. However, it seems fair that we should give at least one candidate description or definition.

A candidate description/definition; 'direct global impact of research'

"The direct global impact of a work of research is determined by the value of the information that it provides in helping individuals, governments, funders, and policymakers make better decisions. While research may not definitively answer key questions it should leave us more informed (in a Bayesian sense, 'more concentrated belief distributions') about these. We will measure the value of these 'better choices' in terms of the extent these "

The above comes close to how some people on The Unjournal team think about research impact and prioritization, but we don't plan to adopt an official guiding definition.

Note the above definition is meant to exclude more basic research, which may also be high value, but which mainly serves as a building block for other research. In fact, The Unjournal does consider the value of research as an input into other research, particularly when it directly influences direct policy-relevant research, e.g., see .

It also excludes the value of "learning the truth" as an intrinsic good; we have tended not to make this a priority.

For more guidance on how we apply this, see our .

Others' takes on this question, resources...

Syllabi

Syllabi and course outlines that address global prioritization

EA-linked

Those listed below are at least somewhat tied to Effective Altruism.

Other representative and relevant syllabi

(To be included here)

Funder/organization research agendas

We next consider organizations that take a broad focus on helping humans, animals, and the future of civilization. Some of these have explicitly set priorities and research agendas, although the level of specificity varies. Most of the organizations below have some connections to Effective Altruism; over time, we aim to also look beyond this EA focus.

GPI research agenda – considerations

GPI focuses on prioritization research—what to prioritize and why; how to make these decisions. They focus less on how to implement improvements and interventions.

The agenda is divided into "The longtermism paradigm" and "General issues in global prioritisation."

The agenda focuses largely on formal theory (in philosophy, economics, and decision science) and, to a lesser extent., methodology. They aim to identify and inform "crucial considerations," and rarely focus on specific impact assessments.

Nonetheless, the agenda cites some empirical and directly policy-relevant work, and there are suggestions (e.g., from Eva Vivalt) that they might move more towards this in the future.

GPI research agenda – categories and content

Below, I (Reinstein) list the categories from GPI's 2020 agenda. I give a first-pass impression of the relevance of these categories for The Unjournal, in something like descending order (bold = most clearly relevant).

More relevant to The Unjournal:

More relevant to The Unjournal:

Open Philanthropy

Other agendas and discussions

To be expanded, cataloged, and considered in more detail

Also consider

General advice

Psychology and well-being

Economics: overviews and prioritization exercises

Reinstein's slides/outline of this field and opportunities

See also (internal/Unjournal discussions)

Research scoping discussion spaces

Rhys-Bernard: reading syllabus -

Phil Trammel: "Topics in Economic Theory & Global Prioritization" -

" page in "Economics for EA and vice versa" Gitbook

Stafforini's list of EA syllabi

(2020)

""

""

""

Less relevant to The Unjournal: "", "", "", "", ""

Less relevant:,

; posted on the EA Forum as ""

posted on the EA Forum as

is a fairly brief discussion and overview linking mostly to OP-funded research.

("Research Priorities," 2021): A particularly well organized discussion. Each section has a list of relevant academic literature, some of which is recent and some of which is applied or empirical.

: Their "" and "Research briefs" are particularly helpful, and connect to a range of academic and policy research

: simple discussions of the cause they prioritize, backed by numbers and links/citations

: Some directional suggestions in the "Our current plans" section under "Our research going forward is expected to focus on:"

: Not easy to link to research; they have a large number of priorities, goals, and principles; see infographic:

Their "" page considering relative cost-effectiveness; generally a shallow review/BOTEC spreadsheet approach. "CEARCH attempts to identify a cause’s marginal expected value (MEV)."

: This page is particularly detailed and contains a range of useful links to other agendas!

"

)

(Gainsburg et al, 2021)

"

also "

: The survey, as reported in the paper, does not suggest a particular agenda, but it does suggest a direction . . . economists would generally like to see more work in certain applied areas.

): . . . . NSF to "describe grand challenge questions . . . that transcend near-term funding cycles and are likely to drive next-generation research in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences.”

An introduction to global priorities research for economists
2023 slides/syllabus/references
See also
"Existing resources (economics focused)
here
Global Priorities Institute research agenda
🎉
1. The longtermism paradigm
Reducing and mitigating catastrophic risk
Economic growth, population growth, and inequality
Forecasting the long-term future
Intergenerational governance
The value of the future of humanity
Articulation and evaluation of longtermism
Other ways of leveraging the size of the future
Moral uncertainty for longtermists
2. General issues in global prioritisation
Distributions of cost-effectiveness
Institutions
Optimal timing and discounting
Diversification and hedging
Modelling altruism
Altruistic coordination
Decision-theoretic issues
Epistemological issues
"Research agenda draft for GPI economics"
Social Science Research Topics for Global Health and Wellbeing
Social science research we'd like to see on global health and wellbeing
Social Science Research Topics for Animal Welfare
Social science research we'd like to see on animal welfare
“Technical and Philosophical Questions That Might Affect Our Grantmaking”
Happier Lives Institute
research agenda
Animal Charity Evaluators
Methodology
Giving What We Can's "high-impact causes"
Rethink Priorities 2021 strategy (forum post)
Centre for Exploratory Altruism Research:
Findings
Effective Thesis Project "research agendas"
80000 Hours research questions by discipline
Cause X guide"
Cause-mapping resources (sheet with links, associated with Falk Lieder
EA Psychology research agenda
How effective altruism can help psychologists maximize their impact
Spencer Greenberg's list of "most important psychology topics
Life Improvement Science "Potential Research Priorities..."
"Grand challenges
"What’s Worth Knowing? Economists’ Opinions about Economics" (Andre and Falk, 2022)
Ten Years and Beyond: Economists Answer NSF's Call for Long-Term Research Agendas (Compendium, 2011
"Replicability & Generalisability: A Guide to CEA discounts"
UNICEF strategic plan
Effective Altruism: Research Priorities and Opportunities: Public hosted slides, presented at LIS 9 Jun 2021
Slides
Effective Altruism: Research Priorities and Opportunities: Public hosted slides, presented at LIS 9 Jun 2021
Slides as single scrollable document
High-level considerations for prioritizing research