About Leverage Research
Leverage Research is an independent non-profit research institute dedicated to aiding responsible scientific advances which benefit society.
They have three main programs:
- History of Science program — studying how successful fields developed in the past, particularly in the early stages, through in-depth case studies of important scientific discoveries.
- Exploratory Psychology program — disseminating introspection research tools and methods developed from previous psychology research (conducted during 2011–2019) to external researchers to conduct their own investigations and test our hypotheses.
- Bottlenecks Program — supporting external efforts to build fields and break bottlenecks in science and technology through events and collaborations.
What is was"Leverage 1.0" and "Leverage 2.0"?
The terms "Leverage 1.0" (2011-2019) and "Leverage 2.0" (2019 onwards) are typically used to differentiate between two very different phases of Leverage's history.
The distinction is described as follows in this report by Leverage Research:
From 2011 to 2019, Leverage Research and what is it?
Did leverage behave badlyled a sprawling research collaboration investigating a wide array of areas in the past?social sciences. The environment was informal and unstructured, and researchers were afforded a great degree of freedom in the selection of their projects. Over time, the collaboration came to include many projects, several organizations, and at its peak, almost 45 people. This research collaboration was often informally referred to as “Leverage” or “the ecosystem,” and more recently—given the need to distinguish it from Leverage Research today—“Leverage 1.0.”
In June 2019, the Leverage 1.0 research collaboration was disbanded, with the various projects and organizations involved instead coming to operate independently and many of the staff who had been involved being let go. Leverage Research, then with only a small number of staff, completely restructured to focus on studying and supporting early stage science and applying the lessons of its research to aid scientific advance. Today, Leverage Research has a more standard work environment with three main programs—History of Science, Exploratory Psychology, and Bottlenecks in Science and Technology—and all of our staff have defined roles within the organization.
This restructure was designed to take into account the lessons we had learned from Leverage 1.0 and address some of the issues that led to dissolution. These included moving towards a more centralized and professionalized work culture with delineated roles and responsibilities, clear reporting lines, set work hours, and standard practices for setting expectations and managing performance. It also involved a narrower organizational focus, separation between work and personal lives, and much greater public communication to help others to understand and engage with our work.
The distinction is also discussed in this 2019 EA Forum post, this 2021 LessWrong post and a...
2019-2020 Annual Report:https://www.leverageresearch.org/annual-report-2019-2020Leverage ResearchTwitter: https://twitter.com/leverageresAbout Leverage Research
Leverage Research is an independent non-profit research institute dedicated to aiding responsible scientific advances which benefit society.
They have three main programs:
What is
was"Leverage 1.0" and "Leverage 2.0"?The terms "Leverage 1.0" (2011-2019) and "Leverage 2.0" (2019 onwards) are typically used to differentiate between two very different phases of Leverage's history.
The distinction is described as follows in this report by Leverage Research:
The distinction is also discussed in this 2019 EA Forum post, this 2021 LessWrong post and a...