3 ms·

The about page says that not only did many of the funders make their money in tech (Patrick Collison, Vitalik Buterin, Ron Conway, etc.), the idea for the insti

The about page says that not only did many of the funders make their money in tech (Patrick Collison, Vitalik Buterin, Ron Conway, etc.), the idea for the institute came from the Fast Grants initiative, which offered rapid (<2 weeks) turnaround times for Covid-related projects. I wonder if this type of independent research institute with a generous budget is becoming more common. [0] Perhaps it's in response to current conditions in Academia. I hope it becomes more widespread. [0] The model reminds me of the Allen Institutes, e.g. the Allen Institute for AI: https://allenai.org/ https://allenai.org/

ak217 5y ago
The Wellcome Trust, HHMI, Allen Institutes (there are several aside from Allen AI), Gates Foundation, and CZI/Chan Zuckerberg Biohub are all important prior efforts in this space that each made significant innovations in funding and evaluation of scientific output. At minimum, Wellcome and HHMI have "made it" in the sense that they built large parts of the public/private organizational infrastructure that most scientists rely on; their legacy is integral to modern science. The promise of Fast Grants/Arc Institute is technology to speed up the funding cycle itself, as well as experimental iteration time, which is fantastic. I think a big question is how to tap into geographical areas with less opportunity. Headquartering a new institute in Palo Alto makes sense to tap into existing world class researcher and funder networks, but talent needed to run research labs is overutilized in the Bay Area and will be hard to hire staff. Putting aside the logistics of operating outside the US, there are lots of places like Atlanta, New Jersey, Baltimore, Chicago etc. whose talent pools are relatively less utilized. I hope someone is thinking about placing satellite hubs in those areas.
- codekilla 5y ago
  What would a low capital biological research institute look like? Like nothing?....because it can't exist? (This is the answer in my experience). I ask only to see if anyone has any ideas. The consensus seems to be that you will always need 100s of millions of dollars to do something like this.

ak217 5y ago

The Wellcome Trust, HHMI, Allen Institutes (there are several aside from Allen AI), Gates Foundation, and CZI/Chan Zuckerberg Biohub are all important prior efforts in this space that each made significant innovations in funding and evaluation of scientific output. At minimum, Wellcome and HHMI have "made it" in the sense that they built large parts of the public/private organizational infrastructure that most scientists rely on; their legacy is integral to modern science. The promise of Fast Grants/Arc Institute is technology to speed up the funding cycle itself, as well as experimental iteration time, which is fantastic. I think a big question is how to tap into geographical areas with less opportunity. Headquartering a new institute in Palo Alto makes sense to tap into existing world class researcher and funder networks, but talent needed to run research labs is overutilized in the Bay Area and will be hard to hire staff. Putting aside the logistics of operating outside the US, there are lots of places like Atlanta, New Jersey, Baltimore, Chicago etc. whose talent pools are relatively less utilized. I hope someone is thinking about placing satellite hubs in those areas.

codekilla 5y ago
What would a low capital biological research institute look like? Like nothing?....because it can't exist? (This is the answer in my experience). I ask only to see if anyone has any ideas. The consensus seems to be that you will always need 100s of millions of dollars to do something like this.