James Phipps

At #metascience2025 for day 2

Come find me if you're interested in:
- tracking the impact of funding on the direction of science
- AI in science
- open source code and science

A nice start to the Metascience conference in London today! It's good to be among this niche but rapidly growing community focused on making research more impactful. Great to reconnect with familiar faces and meet new, brilliant minds.

That's true, when I worked with the BPE stats team they didn't have to contend with that!

I'm guessing I'm behind on data and definitions

That's an average turnover of over £40m. That sounds pretty high. The old vital 6% report found HGFs accounted for 55% of jobs over a three year period, but that was of jobs created and about half of the contribution came from HGFs that were already large when the growth episode started.

Business population estimates 2024 Annual business population estimates for the UK and regions in 2024.

From BPE it seems the largest SMEs (~38k businesses with 50+ employees) have a total turnover of ~0.9 trillion. Does the scale-up figure include those that have become large or even those that started large? Is it about share of revenue growth rather that total sales? www.gov.uk/government/s...

First ever Entrepreneurship Advisor appointed to the Treasury Alex Depledge MBE appointed by the Chancellor as first ever Entrepreneurship Advisor appointed to Treasury to address barriers for high growth businesses.

Does anyone know how this stat is calculated "There are over 34,000 scale-ups in the UK — just 0.6% of SMEs — yet they generate a staggering £1.4 trillion in turnover, contributing 55% of all SME revenues."? www.gov.uk/government/n...

What’s the return on government support for R&D?

To try to get a credible answer, Open Philanthropy and the Sloan Foundation are committing up to $1 million to trying something new: we call it a Pop-Up Journal.

Ah okay. Thanks. I was worried I'd exposed an inability to spot a massive "download the summary report button"

Hi Tera, yes good to see this progressing. Is there a copy of the draft report available to read?

A text box with the words: R&D Mission Programme: Mission Challenge Directors

🚨 Hiring news! 🚨 I’m looking to hire five really important new roles. Each will lead a major new innovation programme to tackle one of five major national challenges.

I still hope to be able to apply the Business Basics model to other policy areas and strengthen links with academic research

At least when it comes to policy it would also be good to create more opportunities to combine or at least align research and programme funding.

Call for Proposals: The Labor Economics of Frontier AI - Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In partnership with @schmidtsciences.bsky.social, @simonhrjohnson.bsky.social, David Autor and I are seeking funding proposals from researchers conducting innovative field experiments on the labor economics of frontier AI. Expressions of interest due March 31. shapingwork.mit.edu/call-for-pro...

Designing Field Experiments - An IGL Masterclass Series The Innovation Growth Lab (IGL) and the Conference on Field Experiments in Strategy (CFXS) are launching a masterclass series designed to provide insights into how to design field experiments in…

Very excited to announce the launch of the IGL Masterclass Series: Designing Field Experiments, an opportunity to gain insights from leading experts in the fields of science, innovation and productivity. IGL and CFXS have teamed up to bring you a pilot version, starting in March 2025

📢 The Call for Proposals deadline has been extended by one week!

Proposals are due by 23:59 GMT on Friday, 14 Feb. We are accepting proposals for virtual pre-conference symposia, in-person panel sessions, and talks or posters on any topic related to metascience: metascience.info/call-for-pro...

Do Prediction Technologies Help Novices or Experts More? It can go either way

New post! Looking at who benefits more from technologies that make discovery easier; literal maps, genome wide association studies, and machine learning.

Perhaps. Another push back is that SME policy doesn't matter.
Either way I've always thought it would be good to raise the focus on economics and outcomes. With a need for better data on the overall activity as well as properly testing the causal impacts of individual programmes

Yeah, my now IGL colleagues also tried to estimate several years back (I was at the time in BIS trying to dodge their FOIs). But to link subsidies to declining productivity are we assuming they've got larger; less effective or opportunity cost has risen?

Hi Paul, it'd be great to find out more about that data and your findings.
But I was also thinking about the subsidies themselves. How has the scale and (in)effectiveness of those changed?

Do they have some data on trends in the scale and targeting of the latter?

Only a few hours until IGL launches our “Experimenting in University-Industry Collaboration” Handbook.
Enough time to change you plans and join us or at least sign up to get a copy

International Fellowships 2025 The International Fellowships Programme enables researchers to work for three years at a UK institution with the aim of building a globally connected, mobile research and innovation workforce.

Please spread the word as we have opened the call for @britishacademy.bsky.social International Fellowships which enable researchers to work for two years at a UK institution. If you fancy being away from your country right now this could be an option!
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/inte...

My wife has ranked several times on Polytopia and I didn't even say well done 😔

A PSA target?

Pre-announcement: UKRI Metascience AI early career fellowships The UK Metascience Unit will fund a cohort of early career fellows to build our understanding of how the growing adoption of AI is changing the research landscape, including what metascientific, ethic...

Our Metascience Unit is funding a cohort of early career fellows to build our understanding of how AI is changing the research landscape, and how governments, businesses and funders should respond.

Applications open on 13 Feb 2025!

www.ukri.org/opportunity/...

Only six days left to apply for the IGL Seed Grants, supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation! These grants are designed to support researchers in developing and piloting experimental ideas that could evolve into full-scale Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs).

Prediction Technologies and Innovation Looking Under the Lamp Post

New post! Gene-disease maps, software for science, and AI/ML are all forms of prediction technology. How do they impact innovation? open.substack.com/pub/mattscla...

As I read this I realise I am now late for our meeting

Putting Economic Research into Practice at Businesses "Putting Economic Research into Practice at Businesses (to Inform Science and Major Social Challenges)" Slides from ASSA NABE

During a panel at the ASSA meetings I presented field experimental work in partnership with firms.

Many have asked for my slides and those can be found here (via 2024!): ideas.repec.org/p/feb/natura...