Progress studies
Why have standards of living improved and how can we speed up progress?

Interested in working on this research direction? Apply for our coaching



Start here for an introduction to prioritisation research

This profile is tailored towards students studying economics and sociology, however we expect there to be valuable open research questions that could be pursued by students in other disciplines.

Why is this a pressing problem?

Progress Studies is a fairly new field proposed by Tyler Cowen and Patrick Collison to investigate how successful ‘people, organisations, institutions, policies and cultures’ have previously arisen and develop our understanding of how to increase positive progress in the future.

Many advancements in science and technology have significantly improved human wellbeing over the past few centuries. It could be highly valuable to increase our understanding of the factors that led to periods of particularly high innovation throughout history, and to identify current bottlenecks to positive progress and interventions that could speed progress up. Current incentive structures in science often do not encourage the most productive research strategies or a focus on the questions that are most important from a welfare perspective, so finding ways to improve scientific incentives is one promising avenue. Despite how valuable many innovations have been for humanity, scientific and technological progress can also pose risks, for example by leading to the development of technologies that increase existential risk. Doing research on how policies and institutions can disincentivise risky research and encourage safe alternatives is therefore also important.

Economic growth also appears to be a highly effective way of improving human wellbeing and reducing poverty. It could be useful to investigate the causes of economic growth and further explore its relationship with wellbeing. This 80000 Hours podcast interview with Tyler Cowen explores this in more detail.

Although Progress Studies tends to focus most on understanding scientific and technological progress and economic growth, one of the leading figures in the field, Jason Crawford, advocates here for the importance of taking a big picture perspective that includes moral and social changes when exploring the causes and nature of progress. Because of this broad scope, while this profile focuses on scientific and technological progress and economic growth, our profiles on moral circle expansion and improving institutional decision making are also relevant to progress studies.

 

Explore existing research

It might also be useful to check Winners of Emergent Ventures grant (progress studies tranche) to find other researchers working on this research direction.

  • The Institute for Progress is a think tank focused on policy research to speed up scientific, technological and industrial progress.
  • The Roots of Progress is a research organisation exploring the value and causes of progress.
  • The Science for Progress Initiative at JPAL is focused on researching the most effective methods of funding and supporting scientific research.
  • The Center for Open Science is an organisation working to increase the openness, integrity and reproducibility of research.
  • New Science is a non-profit researching what scientific infrastructure and norms most support progress.

See this list of books from The Roots of Progress.

Find a thesis topic

If you’re interested in working on this research direction, below are some ideas on what would be valuable to explore further. If you want help refining your research ideas, apply for our coaching!

One potentially promising avenue is to study how to organise institutions of science to increase their productivity. A new discipline named Science of Science sets out to do this in a quantitative, interdisciplinary manner. Some further related ideas can also be found in this series of posts at Nintil. Some people also argue for more structural diversification of scientific institutions and are putting together proposals of how new types of research organisations could be organised (for example, see Samuel Arbesman’s list and José Luis Ricón’s list).

Inefficient practices and technology often persist despite the availability of better alternatives. For example, Bloom et al. (2013) show that providing consulting on management practices to randomly chosen Indian textile firms increased their productivity by 17%. Further research could address why firms do not adopt more productive practices (although this area might be less neglected, see e.g., Comin and Mestieri 2014 for a review of literature on technology diffusion).

Finally, we need to better understand how (and to what extend) we can shape the direction of technological progress to avoid development of harmful technologies. Research in this area could build on the literature on directed technical change, which has been studied both theoretically (Acemoglu 2002, Acemoglu et al. 2012, Popp et al. 2010) and empirically (Popp 2002, Hanlon 2015, Aghion et al. 2016) and the impact of various economic factors such as prices of input on the evolution of technology. The problem of potential adverse side effects or even existential risk caused by new technologies has received little to no attention so far. Thus, it appears to be a promising subject to pursue.

Aside from technological progress, which generally gives us more power and more choices, one could also focus on moral and epistemic progress, which improves our ability to make good choices. An example of such research could be the debate on moral convergence towards liberalism (e.g. Cofnas, 2019) and changes via generational replacement.

One potentially promising avenue is to study how to organise institutions of science to increase productivity. The new discipline named Science of Science sets out to do this in a quantitative, interdisciplinary manner. Some further related ideas can also be found in this series of posts at Nintil. Some people also argue for more structural diversification of scientific institutions and are putting together proposals for how new types of research organisations could be structured (for example, see Samuel Arbesman’s list and José Luis Ricón’s list).

Inefficient practices and technology often persist despite the availability of better alternatives. For example, Bloom et al. (2013) show that providing consulting on management practices to randomly chosen Indian textile firms increased their productivity by 17%. Further research could address why firms do not adopt more productive practices (although this area might be less neglected, see e.g., Comin and Mestieri 2014 for a review of literature on technology diffusion).

Finally, we need to better understand how (and to what extent) we can shape the direction of technological progress to avoid development of harmful technologies. Research in this area could build on the literature on directed technical change, which includes both theoretical (Acemoglu 2002, Acemoglu et al. 2012, Popp et al. 2010) and empirical (Popp 2002, Hanlon 2015, Aghion et al. 2016) studies on the impact of various economic factors (such as prices of input) on the evolution of technology. The problem of potential adverse side effects or even existential risks being caused by new technologies has received little to no attention so far. Thus, it appears to be a promising subject to pursue.

Aside from technological progress, which generally gives us more power and more choices, one could also focus on moral and epistemic progress, which improves our ability to make good choices. An example of such research could be debate on moral convergence towards liberalism (e.g. Cofnas, 2019) and changes via generational replacement.

Further resources

Further reading

Online courses

Apply for our coaching and we can connect you directly with researchers and potentially mentors who can help you refine your research ideas. 

Online locations for discussing this research direction include the Progress Forum, the Progress Studies Slack and others listed here on the Roots of Progress site. You can also apply to join our community if you’re interested in connecting with other students interested in this research direction.

Apply for our database of potential supervisors if you’re looking for formal supervision and take a look at our advice on finding a great supervisor for further ideas.

Our funding database can help you find potential sources of funding if you’re a PhD student interested in this research direction.

If you’re interested in exploring how institutions could be improved, read our profile on improving institutional decision-making. If you’re interested in exploring moral progress, see our profile on moral circle expansion.

Our profiles on preventing the release of dangerous pathogens and the governance of artificial intelligence may both be relevant if you’re interested in differential technological development.

Understanding how some progress occurs might require looking at long-term trends throughout human history; see our profile on the most important historical trends to learn more.

Contributors

This profile was last updated 9/01/2023. Thanks to Martin Kosik and David Janku for writing this profile. Thanks to Kris Gulati for helpful feedback. All errors remain our own.

Subscribe to the Future Researchers Newsletter

Subscribe to our Future Researchers Newsletter for key concepts, resources and news related to changing the world with your thesis and long-term research career.

Explore all our recommended research directions

Search for profiles that are tailored specifically to your degree or discipline using the menu below. If you’re searching for thesis topics, or considering a research career which allows you to make a significant positive impact in the world, we advise you to go through these research directions and learn more about those that seem impactful or interesting to you.

If you are interested in a profile that isn’t listed under your discipline, we still encourage you to explore it if you think you could make progress in this direction. You can also explore all our recommended research directions organised by theme.

See here for a visual map of all our research directions