The Macroscience Podcast Metascience 101 - EP4: "ARPAs, FROs, and Fast Grants, oh my!"
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Oct 1, 2024 
Tyler Cowen, an economics professor, shares insights alongside Patrick Hsu, co-founder of the Arc Institute, and Adam Marblestone, CEO of Convergent Research. They explore the transformative power of new funding models like Fast Grants and Flexible Research Organizations, emphasizing their role in fostering innovation. The conversation also highlights the necessity for evolving scientific practices in response to modern challenges, particularly how startup culture invigorates research. They discuss the collaboration needed in life sciences and the impact of AI on scientific breakthroughs.
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New Science Funding Models
- Three factors explain the rise of new scientific funding models.
- These include critiques of science, bureaucratic foundations, and COVID-19's emergency.
Breakthrough Clusters
- Scientific breakthroughs often come from clustered labs working intensely on a problem.
- Institutional bureaucracy and sclerosis stifle this process, necessitating new models.
Convergent Research: Stripe Atlas of Science
- Convergent Research operates like Stripe Atlas for science, abstracting away the complexities of setting up focused research organizations (FROs).
- FROs gather teams to work on specific scientific or technological tools that wouldn’t be built otherwise.