See the post introducing this sequence for context, caveats, credits, and links to prior discussion relevant to this sequence as a whole.^[1] This post doesn’t necessarily represent the views of my employers.

Summary

In a previous post, I discussed observations that I think demonstrate the current pipeline for “producing” EA-aligned research and researchers are at least somewhat insufficient, inefficient, and prone to error. In another post, I overviewed various possible interventions for improving that pipeline.
This post focuses on one potential intervention: Increasing and/or improving EAs’ use of non-EA options for research-relevant training, credentials, testing fit, etc.^[2]
Such non-EA options include courses, graduate degrees, internships, and jobs in (non-EA parts of) academia, think tanks, government, or industry
Pros of using these non-EA options include that:
- They may provide better training
- They may serve better for testing fit
- They may provide better credentials that are more prestigious, widely recognised, credible, etc.^[3]
- They use up fewer “EA resources” (e.g., the scarce time of senior EA researchers)
Cons of using these non-EA options include that:
- They may provide worse or less relevant training
- They may serve less well for testing fit
- They may provide less relevant credentials
- They involve a higher chance of value drift
EAs’ use of these non-EA options could be increased and/or improved via:
- Raising awareness about these options and encouraging their usage
- Guiding people towards the non-EA options that suit their needs
- Financially supporting the use of these options
- Creating and/or improving these non-EA options

Caveats and clarifications

The caveats mentioned here and here apply to this post as well
My intention here is to quickly note some hopefully useful points, rather than to be comprehensive or groundbreaking
- Other relevant writings include several 80,000 Hours career reviews (e.g., on doing an Economics PhD) and some of the posts tagged Working at EA vs Non-EA Orgs
I have little first-hand knowledge about things like PhD programs or jobs at think tanks or in government
- Though I’ve supplemented that with conversations and some light research
This is not necessarily the single most important intervention option for improving the EA-aligned research pipeline, and certainly wouldn’t make all the other intervention opti

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Improving the EA-aligned research pipeline