- source: https://scienceplusplus.org/metascience/index.html#metascience-as-an-imaginative-design-practice - This is a literature note, as per Ahrens in How to Take Smart Notes. I doubt this is a smart note though. - The authors describe some new social processes that could help overcome science R&D bottlenecks with institutional design. - The authors say that new and sometimes daringly different scientific organizations are being built such as: - big new research institutes: DeepMind - pirate insurgencies: DynamicLand, EleutherAI. - Unusual social processes that should be trialled: - **Acquisition pipeline for research institutes:** People often lament the loss of (or large changes in) great private research institutes past – PARC in the 1970s is perhaps the best modern example[14](https://scienceplusplus.org/metascience/index.html#fn14). If PARC-in-the-1970s was so great, why didn't the NSF acquire it? An acquisition would have been within their mission, and almost certainly a far-better-than-median use of NSF's funds[15](https://scienceplusplus.org/metascience/index.html#fn15). There might well have been political or bureaucratic barriers, but if so the problem lies in politics and bureaucracy, not in the merit of the idea. If public (or philanthropic) acquisition of private research institutes was common, it may incentivize the creation of more outstanding private research institutes. - **Open Source Institute**: Like a research university, but instead of producing understanding in the form of research papers, it would produce understanding in the form of open source software and open protocols (with a penumbra of concomitant goods, such as prototypes, demos, open data and, yes, papers). Based on the thesis that sometimes important new understanding isn't best expressed in words, but rather in code or protocols. A number of superficially similar programs already operate, but none (as far we know) genuinely change the underlying political economy – the means by which people build their reputation and career – which is the primary point. - **At-the-Bench Fellowship:** In their heyday, senior scientists at places such as Bell Labs and Cambridge's Laboratory for Molecular Biology often carried out research work themselves, or in direct, hands-on collaboration with 1-3 others[20](https://scienceplusplus.org/metascience/index.html#fn20). Yet modern universities often strongly encourage scientists to take on a managerial role, applying for grants but being hands off in research work. This Fellowship would fund senior scientists to spend essentially all their time actually doing science. The thesis here is that for some types of work, important discoveries are most likely if done by someone highly skilled, with a deeply developed affinity for some part of nature. Put another way, the thesis is that for some scientists there are increasing returns to focused expertise, not the diminishing returns assumed in the conventional scientist-becomes-manager-of-a-large-group model. Relevant to following - [[0c2 Lovelace Essay]] #riskywork