This article proposes the idea of creating specialized institutions for long-range research with a horizon of 25 years or more. While universities are traditionally seen as the primary institutions for research, their focus tends to be on shorter-term projects due to factors such as PhD and post-doctoral researcher timelines. Long-term research, which may involve ambitious multi-generation projects or longitudinal studies, is essential for making discoveries that require extended durations and resources beyond the scope of individual investigators.
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Seeds of Science is a journal (funded through Scott Alexander's ACX grants program) that publishes speculative or non-traditional articles on scientific topics. Peer review is conducted through community-based voting and commenting by a diverse network of reviewers (or "gardeners" as we call them). Comments that critique or extend the "seed of science" in a useful manner are published in the final document, right after the main text.
We have just sent out a short article for review ("The Need for Long-term Research") that may be of interest to some in the LessWrong community, so I wanted to see if anyone - particularly those with interest in futurism/long-termism - would be interested in joining us as a gardener and providing feedback on the article. As mentioned above, this is an opportunity to have your comment recorded in the published scientific literature (comments can be made with real name or pseudonym).
It is free to join as a gardener and anyone is welcome (we currently have gardeners from all levels of academia and outside of it). Participation is entirely voluntary - we send you submitted articles and you can choose to vote/comment or abstain without notification (so it's no worries if you don't plan on reviewing very often but just want to take a look here and there at the articles people are submitting).
To register, you can fill out this google form. From there, it's pretty self-explanatory - I will add you to the mailing list and send you an email that includes the manuscript, our publication criteria, and a simple review form for recording votes/comments. If you would like to just take a look at this article without being added to the mailing list, then just reach out (info@theseedsofscience.org) and say so.
Happy to answer any questions about the journal through email or in the comments below.