AMA opportunity with GFI Europe’s Science and Technology Team

By Filip Gavranović @ 2024-10-17T14:53 (+25)

The Good Food Institute is a non-profit think tank helping to build a more sustainable, secure and just food system by transforming meat production. We work with scientists, businesses and policymakers to advance plant-based meat, cultivated meat and fermentation – making these alternative proteins delicious, affordable and accessible. By making meat from plants and cultivating it from cells, we can reduce the environmental impact of our food system and save billions of animals from the suffering caused by industrial animal agriculture. 

Founded on effective altruism principles, GFI identifies and advances high-impact, achievable solutions in areas where too few people are working. We focus on what is needed most and provide the talent and resources necessary to have the biggest impact possible. 

As a nonprofit, one of the unique and impactful roles GFI Europe plays is advancing foundational, open-access research in alternative proteins. Our Science and Technology team in particular focuses on growing and supporting the academic ecosystem by bringing funding and scientific expertise into the field, in order to support advances in the science of sustainable protein.

With the giving season on the horizon, when many EA-aligned donors make decisions about how to create the most impact with your donations, GFI Europe’s SciTech team is opening the floor to questions about our work.  If you have a burning question you would like answered, now is your opportunity! Our Head of SciTech, Seren Kell, and our Research and Grants Manager, Stella Child, would both love to receive any questions you might have about our SciTech-focused work. 

For inspiration, here are some examples of questions we’re often asked by our EA-aligned supporters:

• What have the biggest successes been for GFI Europe’s SciTech team?
• How do you know you’ve had counterfactual impact? Can you give any examples?
• As a team, how do you decide what to focus on?
• Within GFI Europe’s SciTech work, what is the room for funding?
• What would marginal funding for GFI Europe achieve with regard to your SciTech work? 

Whatever your questions, please submit them either in the comment section of this post, or via this form by October 23 - in mid-November a link to a video and a transcript of their responses will be available on the Forum. Please note that, in order to preserve our team’s time to focus on their most urgent and important work, we are not able to commit to answering posting answers to individual questions in the comment section - they will be taken into account in the video. 

Until then, if you would like to know more about what our SciTech team at GFI Europe does:

• The 80,000 Hours podcast with Seren Kell is a great starting point, as she discusses the research gaps holding back alternative proteins from mass adoption, of particular note being the  "GFI Europe's work" section of the transcript. We share some great impact stories from our Alternative Protein Project here.
• One of our key goals is to establish Centres of Excellence which elevate alternative protein research. Read more about recently-established centres in the UK: Bezos Centre for Sustainable Proteins, National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre, CARMA, and the microbial food hub.
• In order to improve collaboration among scientists in Europe and beyond, we worked to support the development of dedicated alternative protein actions alongside The European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST), a funding mechanism established to help build research networks.
• Look out for our upcoming report on public funding, which analyses the research funding landscape for alternative proteins across Europe over the last five years, and its companion report detailing the publishing landscape analysis of the European alternative protein research ecosystem (due to be published in late October).