EA - Introducing Cause Innovation Bootcamp by Akhil

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Introducing Cause Innovation Bootcamp, published by Akhil on October 17, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. We are pleased to introduce Cause Innovation Bootcamp (CIB), a project that aims to train researchers interested in EA, while vetting new potential cause areas in Global Health and Development. We achieve this by taking research fellows through a training bootcamp that upskills them on the basics of evidence-based research and then getting them to produce a shallow report (using a standardised template) of a cause area, all whilst being supported by a senior mentor. These reports will then be posted on the EA Forum, and be sent to relevant organisations who the research might be of particular interest to, and for whom it might inform their decision-making. Cause areas are selected through a rough prioritisation which helps us identify which ones we think are most likely to be promising. We are currently running a pilot program for 5-6 fellows (7th Nov. 2022- 20th Dec. 2022). Applications are open until 30th Oct. 2022 (Sunday)- please apply on the following application form if you are interested. Why this project? We identified a few primary bottlenecks in the research infrastructure within EA: A relative lack of novel research exploring new problem areas and interventions that might beat the current bar and/or be as impactful as current EA focus areas within global health and development- We think that this is important because our ability to most effectively do the most good depends on our ability to either fund or found new interventions within cause areas. We try to solve this by having created a comprehensive database of cause areas within global health and global development, and roughly prioritising them based on burden of disease/number of people affected and tractability. By producing shallow reports on topics that might be promising and are currently under-investigated, we hope that this can reveal potential ‘blindspots’ and ‘low-hanging fruit’. Our database and all shallow reports written will be an open-access resource available to the entire EA research community. A relative lack of quality researchers (both current and emerging) approaching prioritisation from an EA lens- We think, given that quality research is essential to fund or found promising interventions, researchers are pretty central to the long-term health and strength of the EA movement. We aim to mobilise two groups of talent: (1) motivated EAs who want to be involved in research, but don't currently have the requisite skills and experience, (2) existing researchers in the broader GHD (Global Health and Development) community who might be interested in approaching research from an EA perspective. Although there are lots of fantastic researchers in EA and the broader GHD community, we know that there is a talent bottleneck. We also know that there are lots of motivated people out there who want to be involved in research! What do we do? Our theory of change is below Our current assumption is that roughly 50% of the impact is achieved by introducing more good researchers to the EA research ecosystem. We would estimate that the other 50% of the impact to come from research produced through the training program. We aren’t confident about these estimates, and will evaluate these at the end of our pilot program; depending on their results, we might emphasise parts of this Theory of Change that generate the most impact. What does being a fellow involve? We are currently running a pilot of our program, and have received funding from the EA Infrastructure Fund to fund 5- 6 research fellows through our program. The program is a 6-week commitment from November 7 2022 -20 December 2022 that involves: Self-study of training modules on research skills- We have 6-8 lessons covering various key res...