How do we prioritize what research to work on?
I think people generally hold the notion helping people is good, and that time is a scarce resource. So when choosing research to work on, how do we choose the most important project. Given the potential for research to impact a sector of knowledge, this is certainly a consideration that we must spend some time making, as a change in project might have a 10x or 100x increase in impact on people’s lives.
Something I have always found frustrating about research is that so much of it seems to apply to such a small percentage of the population, and even within that population, it has a relatively small and maybe unmeaningful impact on their lives. When I see a research project like that, my mind is always going to other potential projects the students could have been working on that might have had a significantly more meaningful impact on a community’s lives.
Although a part of me finds this more niche research interesting, there is a growing part of me that feels the need prioritize more work towards creating a large impact for people, whether that impact is applied today, or later down the road. Some people might argue saying that unintentional discoveries are made in niche research all the time that do have dramatic impacts on the rest of the population, however, I think that the number of these accidental discoveries would not outweigh the number of similar discoveries made by purposeful research.
In conclusion, I think my thoughts are that more researchers are needed in total, and while niche research is in fact important, a greater ratio of our resources should go towards research projects which are likely to have an meaningful positive impact on people’s lives.
Read more here for my inspiration: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/s/B79ro5zkhndbBKRRX/p/wYjMsKsEkDPgHeAbS
In summary it starts:
Here are four ideas that you probably already agree with. Individually, they each might seem a bit trite or self-evident. But taken together, they have significant implications for how we think about doing good in the world.
- It’s important to help others
- People are equal
- Helping more is better than helping less
- Our resources are limited
Very interesting post. Something to consider is that research for an impact on a large group is much harder to achieve. There are many more variables and complexities to consider the larger the problem gets. If we are all working on big problems, then advances across disciplines don’t really happen.
Might be interesting to consider that a number of small advances, lead to big impacts.
Yes, I think this is definitely true, and I’m trying to strike a balance between these two beliefs, but I also think that there are a lot of very neglected problems that it might be pretty easy to make a big impact on since few people are working on them.
Great post. I agree that it’s hard to prioritize, and it’s hard to anticipate what will have great impact.
Program directors at the NSF, NIH, etc., or research directors of corporate labs struggle with this daily. “I’ve got $1billion. What research should we invest in? And should I give out 20 different $10m projects to different teams attempting the same thing, and hope that one solves my problem, or should I pick 1 really good team to go for it? And how specific should my problem statement be? If I’m too specific, I might rule out creative solutions, but if I’m too general, the awardees might not hit my target.” If you’re corporate, you’re wondering about human impact but also what research will lead to the greatest product revenue or market penetration. If you’re academic, you’re wondering what will have the most human impact and what will lead to further useful research. Maybe this is a job you would enjoy one day.
To see examples of how agencies like this specify their work, check out some of the RFPs (requests for proposals), also called “solicitations” or “broad agency announcements” (BAAs).
NSF solicitations generally: https://www.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities
– If you choose Directorate = CISE at the top filter, you’ll see things you might be more interested in.
Army Research Lab BAAs: https://cftste.experience.crmforce.mil/arlext/s/arl-opportunities
– There are similar BAAs for all branches of military
– If you end up reading these, see if you can learn what 6.1, 6.2, etc. mean.
That sound more like my worst nightmare 😂 I’m much better at just doing a list of tasks really well. Dealing with ambiguous situations like this is definitely something I am trying to get better at, but doing that sort of job well sounds really hard.
I also need to look into RFPs more. I saw a really interesting one on hardware for AI verification which seemed really interesting, but I’m not sure how I extract anything more out of it besides it looking cool unless I have a professor at my school who is very interested in that specific thing.
Do you think it might be effective to find an RFP that looks interesting and build a project around that? That way you let one person decide what research is really helpful instead of you taking the time out of your job to consider these things? (maybe this is common practice and I am just unaware)