I am trying to decide where to donate this year. I am mostly interested in funding cause prioritisation research. I am not sure how best to evaluate the EA research organisations that are out there. As someone who is at the frontline of trying to turn EA ideas into policy change I have my own thoughts on what research I have found most useful (will share in the answers section below). And so I thought it might be useful to ask others for their views on which research is most used.
So curious to know:
Which EA organisations' research has been useful to you?
Note: For the sake of simplicity:
- I am not that interested in if folk have used 80000 Hours's research for career decisions or GiveWell's or Animal Charity Evaluator's research for donation decisions, etc. [Edit: but if you have used other research for career or donation decisions do share]
- I have asked about "EA organisations" specifically (although if other orgs do good research too feel free to flag it)
- I am looking for positive stories (Negative comments, Eg: I read all their research and it was no use, are acceptable but not the main aim)
I sometimes worry that the feedback loop from do useful research all the way down to see a significant change in the world is very long and opaque. If people have general thoughts on this feedback loop or on evaluating research organisations do share.
Also this may be a nice way to signpost particularly useful pieces of research.
Thank you Jack. Maybe see my update comment below. I don’t know how to evaluate the impact of academic research where I cannot see any real world use of that research. That is not to say that I don’t think it has value but the feedback loops to creating value are really long and opaque, especially for the kind of philosophical work GPI appear to be focusing on. If you have a good way of evaluating that kind of research do say, I would love to hear. But at present I would be more excited to donate to organisations where there is use of their research in som... (read more)