To me most of these suggestions seem like awesome things but not logical fits for "research". I think the key question is not "what is awesome" but instead "wha

To me most of these suggestions seem like awesome things but not logical fits for "research". I think the key question is not "what is awesome" but instead "what projects would be a better fit for YC Research than for a startup". For example, areas where an open standard would be great, but right now it seems like companies are bickering and trying to control it. Bitcoin is one example of this. So is the IoT space, both in APIs and in actual hardware designs. Another situation is things that are fundamentally valuable yet unprofitable. Like drugs that are out of patent and have multiple uses but are not FDA approved for all those uses. Or figuring out how to make more existing research actually public and shared as widely as possible. Another situation is areas where the existing research establishment is busted. Reproducibility is a big one here. Try finding articles in Nature or Science that you can't reproduce and then make a big stink about their results being false. Overall though I think every answer to this question should include an answer to, "why is this a better fit for YC Research than for a new startup".