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Our research process: an overview from Rethink Priorities’ Global Health and Development team
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Rethink Priorities·Melanie Basnak🔸·Greer Gosnell·Ruby Dickson·Jenny Kudmowa·Tom Hird·bruce·JamesHu🔸·Erin Braid
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3/5
Good(3)Good quality. Reputable source with community review or editorial standards, but less rigorous than peer-reviewed venues.
Rating inherited from publication venue: EA Forum
This post is relevant to AI safety knowledge base users interested in structured research methodologies, as Rethink Priorities' approach to prioritization and evidence synthesis has parallels with how AI safety research agendas are developed and evaluated.
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Global health & developmentResearch methodsResearch agendas, questions, and project listsRethink Priorities
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Summary
Rethink Priorities' Global Health and Development team outlines their systematic research methodology, including how they identify, prioritize, and investigate cause areas and interventions. The post serves as a transparent account of the processes guiding their evidence-based policy and charity evaluation work.
Key Points
- •Describes how the team selects and scopes research questions within global health and development
- •Explains their approach to evidence synthesis, uncertainty handling, and producing actionable recommendations
- •Provides transparency into institutional research practices at a major EA-aligned research organization
- •Highlights the iterative nature of their work, including feedback loops with stakeholders and funders
- •Serves as a reference for other researchers seeking to adopt rigorous, structured research methodologies
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# Our research process: an overview from Rethink Priorities’ Global Health and Development team
By Rethink Priorities, Melanie Basnak🔸, Greer Gosnell, Ruby Dickson, Jenny Kudmowa, Tom Hird, bruce, JamesHu🔸, Erin Braid
Published: 2023-03-20
Summary
=======
Rethink Priorities’ [Global Health and Development](https://rethinkpriorities.org/global-health-and-development) team is a multidisciplinary ten-person team conducting research around various global health, international development, and climate change topics. We have so far mostly done “shallow” style reports for [Open Philanthropy](https://www.openphilanthropy.org/), though we have also worked for other organizations, and have conducted some self-driven research. This post aims to share our current research process. The hope is to make our research as transparent as possible.
About the team
==============
The Global Health and Development (GHD) [team](https://rethinkpriorities.org/team#ghd) is one of the newer departments at Rethink Priorities (RP). It officially formed in Q3 2021, and throughout 2022 the team grew from the initial four hires to its current 10 members. Our team consists of two senior research managers ([Tom Hird](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomhird/) and [Melanie Basnak](https://www.linkedin.com/in/melaniebasnak/)) overseeing eight researchers of different seniority ([Greer Gosnell](https://www.linkedin.com/in/greer-gosnell/), [Aisling Leow](https://www.linkedin.com/in/aislingleow/), [Jenny Kudymowa](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-kudymowa/), [Ruby Dickson](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rubydickson/), [Bruce Tsai](https://www.linkedin.com/in/brucetsai/), [Carmen van Schoubroeck](https://www.linkedin.com/in/carmenvs/), [James Hu](https://www.linkedin.com/in/y-james-hu/), and [Erin Braid](https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinbraid/)). GHD team members have expertise in economics, health, science, and policy, and bring experience from academia, consultancy, medicine, and nonprofit work.
Our past research reports
=========================
Rethink Priorities is a research organization that strives to generate impact by providing relevant stakeholders with tools to make more informed decisions. The GHD team’s work to date has mainly been commissioned by donors looking to have a positive impact. Since its inception, the team has completed 23 reports for five different organizations/individuals, as well as two self-driven reports. We have publicly published four of these reports:
1. [How effective are prizes at spurring innovation?](https://rethinkpriorities.org/publications/how-effective-are-prizes-at-spurring-innovation)
2. [Livelihood interventions: overview, evaluation, and cost-effectiveness](https://rethinkpriorities.org/publications/livelihood-interventions)
3. [The REDD+ framework for reducing deforestation and mitigating climate change: overview, evaluation, and cost-effectiveness](https://rethinkpriorities.org/publications/the-redd-framework-for-reducing-deforestatio
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