Many thanks for the links! I did read some of Nielsen's stuff yesterday (via a link someone else posted here), which I find very interesting. I'll continue to look into this.

This stuff is very important: as Bostrom points out in this article - http://www.nickbostrom.com/views/science.pdf - you can probably do more for the world if you're a really succesful "meta-scientists" (who improves the methods or institutions of science) than you can do if you're a really succesful "first-order scientist" (e.g. physicist). Given that the present institutions of science are far from ideal, as I see it, there is much room for improvement here.

Science hostels - what a lovely idea! :)