About the Forethought Foundation

 

The Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research aims to promote academic work that addresses the question of how to use our scarce resources to improve the world by as much as possible.

We are especially interested in the idea that the primary determinant of the value of our actions today is how those actions influence the very long-run future. We believe that by making the right decisions today, humanity has the opportunity to positively steer civilisation’s trajectory for thousands of years to come.  We are therefore interested in supporting excellent research that:

  • Defends or criticises the idea that we should primarily care about the very long-run impact of our actions.

  • Works out the implications of a long-term view for our decisions today.

  • Is of importance for the long-run future of civilisation, even if the research is not directly about the idea of long-term impact.

The Forethought Foundation is a project of the Effective Ventures Foundation and works in close collaboration with the Global Priorities Institute at Oxford University.


What Is Global Priorities Research?

 

Global priorities research is an academic discipline at the intersection of philosophy, economics, and the social sciences. It aims to determine how individuals and institutions should spend their limited resources in order to improve the world by as much as possible.

For more information on global priorities research, see the Global Priorities Institute (GPI) website and the GPI research agenda.


Our Plans

 

The Forethought Foundation is planning to offer scholarships and fellowships to students in global priorities research, as well as research grants for established scholars.

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