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PQ: Continuous updates, process log
See: for context, for specific questions
Key dates and milestones
Nov 1, 2024: EA Funds grant term begins
May 14: Submitted progress report
June: Prioritized 3 practitioner-suggested pivotal questions from 2 organizations + 1 internally-suggested
June 2025: Contracted (formally and informally) with 5 academic research experts and practitioner researchers to help us scope and finalize 4 PQs
Aug 1: EA Funds grant term ends
Note 15 Aug 2025: Our may be a better way for the public to keep track of our progress.
Progress log
Eliciting pivotal questions
1. Elicit questions We will ask impact-focused research-driven organizations such as Open Philanthropy and Charity Entrepreneurship to identify specific quantifiable research-relevant questions that impact their funding, policy, and strategic decisions. See for questions relevant to GW, OP, CE, etc.”
We've contacted roughly 18 organizations via email, Slack threads, EA forum, EA Global 1-1 meetings, or some combination; we’ve had useful engagement with the following organizations:
Org
Progress/response
Date updated
Pursuing 2 related pivotal questions... Followed up with Matt Lerner, several proposed pivotal questions (PQs), pursuing one, in conversation in a discussion space.
June 2025
Pursuing 1 suggested pivotal question, and dicussing a second one we proposed... Had multiple meetings, suggestions added and vetted, pursuing one, ~continuous correspondence.
June 2025
DR in contact with Matt Clancy and Florian Ulrich Jehn. Meetings/chats and Gdoc space. Several proposed PQs via discussions. Pursuing research related to one (not full-scale PQ agenda yet).
May 2025
Research/prioritization org; some dialogue, esp. with the ‘1 paper per research group’ related project (we're evaluating three pieces of research linked to RP coming out of this), and on their previous RP work on cultured meats linked to a pivotal question
May 2025
Anonymous org
Followed up with a specific question. We provided some feedback and shared the question with a set of researcehrs. Several discussions at EAGs suggested a specific, detailed list of questions. (late responder, processing now)
May 2025
ALLFED
Some contact (reached out to us?); several PQs suggested
May 2025
*In touch on other initiative they requested — holding off until we respond to that
May 2025
Shared on their message board. Engaging with them (student fellowship)
May 2025
One contact via EA Global 1-1, suggested PQ that seems hard to source research on
May 2025
No response on PQ itself, but they shared transcript data with us for AI search for PQs
May 2025
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2. Select, refine, and get feedback on the target questions (TQs)
Our relevant field specialist team will discuss and rank suggestions by clarity, impact potential, actionability, and the availability of research, and prioritize at least one TQ per org. We will ensure they are specific, easy to interpret, and likely to produce useful, actionable answers. We will make these public and engage feedback. Where feasible, we will operationalize TQs as prediction market claims (~Metaculus).”
→
Pivotal questions database (Public)
As seen in the link above, we've gathered a small set of such questions through conversations with the aforementioned partners, particularly Founders Pledge and Animal Charity Evaluators, and we’ve made some progress on refining them and finding relevant literature.
As we considered and assessed these questions, we grew to believe that the most important questions were complicated to flesh out carefully and engage with, and thus it would be more productive to focus on a smaller set of questions more carefully as a pilot. (As a side product these conversations also gave us insights into applied research to evaluate as part of our normal stream.)
We decided to focus on two questions, one proposed by Animal Charity Evaluators and the other by Founders Pledge.
1. How do plant-based products substitute for animal products (re welfare footprint)? (Request access to discussion)
2. As framed by FP: ~“What is the best (e.g. evidence-backed, generally useful) way to measure mental health and SWB improvements?... and how to compare/convert between DALYs and WELLBYs” (Request access to discussion)
We are also pursuing a third question somewhat less formally, with several interested organizations, but no clear partner:
3. Cellular/cultured meat cost and price (Request access to discussion)
We've made some strong progress in refining the questions, getting some feedback from the original partners, getting some academics to weigh in, and finding some relevant research. We have struggled a bit to find relevant researchers who are willing to make a commitment to this, but we are pressing on. (We had made plans with one upper-level PhD student, but they adjusted their commitment due to the PhD/job market requirements.) We are now pushing forward less delicately to make concrete progress on the above questions.
3. Source and prioritize relevant research:
Unjournal’s team, (in consultation with the orgs and public feedback, will prioritize 2-5 relevant research papers per TQ.
We have identified a range of papers for each of these pivotal questions and are in the intermediate to final stages of prioritizing these in line with the PQ Project.
In addition, as a byproduct of this process, and of our general push to engage with EA/impact organizations and research linked to them, we have prioritized and are in the process of evaluating several other papers.
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