Institute for Progress (IFP) — February 2024 Update
One quick announcement before our regular updates:
IFP is now a member of the new Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute Consortium at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This group’s mission is to help identify proven, scalable, and interoperable measurements and methodologies to promote the development of trustworthy AI. Our contribution will build on some of the work and themes that Co-founder Caleb Watney discussed in his Congressional testimony last year.
Here’s what we’ve been tackling this month:
✍️ Written Work
In a major report, Senior Technology Fellow Tim Hwang investigated the history of mRNA research to answer some big questions: In a more effective scientific ecosystem, could we have had mRNA vaccines much earlier? And how could we speed the arrival of groundbreaking future technologies?
“This paper reckons with an incongruity: post hoc, mRNA vaccines were clearly a major breakthrough. But for a long period, investigators like Karikó and Weissman and startups like Moderna and BioNTech languished in relative obscurity. Why were mRNA vaccines not developed and made practical for use significantly earlier?... By understanding the structural frictions that slowed development in this case, we may be able to identify broader reforms that allow society to capture the benefits of key breakthrough technologies earlier.”
Read the report: Progress Deferred: Lessons From mRNA Vaccine Development
Senior Infrastructure Fellow Brian Potter released a new report on the past and future of America’s electrical grid.
“The overwhelming priority of energy policy must be making it easier to build things… For mature industries like solar and wind, reforming NEPA and other environmental laws that needlessly slow down building and give niche interests enormous power to delay projects could dramatically accelerate buildout. For more nascent industries, a combination of regulatory reforms and cost-sharing could help bridge the gap to commercialization. We should also reform the interconnection process, so projects don’t spend years waiting in queues to be connected to the grid. If we stay on our current energy trajectory, Americans will pay higher prices for inconsistent energy, while clean projects languish unbuilt… The good news is that a deal on permitting reform can have genuine bipartisan appeal.”
Read the report: How to Save America’s Transmission System
Fellow Janika Schmitt and Jacob Swett collected a reading list on the ARPA model and its family tree.
🏗️ Construction Physics, by Senior Infrastructure Fellow Brian Potter
🏛️ Statecraft, by Senior Editor Santi Ruiz
🎤 Interviews & Events
Co-founder Alec Stapp joined the Infinite Loops podcast to explain why progress is a policy choice.
📰 Media
In Nature, Jordan Dworkin flagged IFP and FAS’s “Sabbaticals in Service” program which is organized through the Metascience Working Group and helps academics with sabbatical credit serve a tour of duty with government agencies.
Bloomberg Law quoted Senior Immigration Fellow Jeremy Neufeld on a USCIS move to increase the fees associated with new immigrant worker petitions.
“‘Given that USCIS is a fee-funded agency, updating those fees is going to be important,’ he said. ‘The thing I worry most about is whether they have the incentives or competency to keep costs down.’ Some efficiencies may be gained from the agency’s significant progress toward digitizing its applications in recent years—with roughly a quarter now available electronically, Neufeld said. The forms were almost entirely paper-based a handful of years ago, he said. ‘If you don’t raise fees and Congress doesn’t appropriate money, and they remain cash-strapped, they’re not going to be able to make investments in capacity,’ he said.”
TechCrunch highlighted Immigration Fellow Lindsay Milliken’s work to improve the O-1A visa application process.
“For those who qualify, getting approval for an O-1A extraordinary ability visa is a relatively quick process, particularly with premium processing. The Biden administration has made qualifying for the O-1A much easier for startup founders in the STEM field. But the O-1A has remained largely unchanged since it was created by the Immigration Act of 1990, so Lindsay Milliken, an immigration fellow at the Institute for Progress, is pushing for the USCIS to update its O-1A guidance for startup founders, especially in the area of nontraditional achievements.”
👋 Tweet for the Road
