• Partner With Us
  • Focus Areas
    • Cause Selection
    • Global Health & Wellbeing
      • Abundance & Growth
      • Effective Giving & Careers
      • Farm Animal Welfare
      • Global Aid Policy
      • Global Health & Development
      • Global Health R&D
      • Global Public Health Policy
      • Scientific Research
    • Global Catastrophic Risks
      • Biosecurity & Pandemic Preparedness
      • Forecasting
      • Global Catastrophic Risks Capacity Building
      • Potential Risks from Advanced AI
    • Other Areas
      • History of Philanthropy
  • Grants
  • Research & Updates
    • Blog Posts
    • In the News
    • Research Reports
    • Notable Lessons
  • About Us
    • Grantmaking Process
    • How to Apply for Funding
    • Careers
    • Team
    • Operating Values
    • Stay Updated
    • Contact Us
  • Partner With Us
  • Focus Areas
    • Cause Selection
    • Global Health & Wellbeing
      • Abundance & Growth
      • Effective Giving & Careers
      • Farm Animal Welfare
      • Global Aid Policy
      • Global Health & Development
      • Global Health R&D
      • Global Public Health Policy
      • Scientific Research
    • Global Catastrophic Risks
      • Biosecurity & Pandemic Preparedness
      • Forecasting
      • Global Catastrophic Risks Capacity Building
      • Potential Risks from Advanced AI
    • Other Areas
      • History of Philanthropy
  • Grants
  • Research & Updates
    • Blog Posts
    • In the News
    • Research Reports
    • Notable Lessons
  • About Us
    • Grantmaking Process
    • How to Apply for Funding
    • Careers
    • Team
    • Operating Values
    • Stay Updated
    • Contact Us

Cause Exploration Prizes: Announcing Our Prizes

  • Category: Global Health & Wellbeing
  • Content Type: Blog Posts
Published: September 09, 2022 | by Chris Smith

We were gratified to receive over 150 good-faith submissions to Open Philanthropy’s Cause Exploration Prizes, where we invited people to suggest a new area for us to support or respond to our suggested questions. We hoped that these submissions would help us find new ways to carry out our mission — helping others as much as possible with the resources available to us.

You can read them on the EA Forum. Below, we highlight the submissions to which we are awarding major prizes and honorable mentions.

We’re awarding these prizes to entries that we thought engaged well with our prompts and helped us to better understand the questions and issues they addressed. We have not investigated each and every claim made in these entries, and the awarding of a prize does not imply that we necessarily endorse their claims or arguments as correct.

Our top prize

We are awarding our top prize ($25,000) to: Organophosphate pesticides and other neurotoxicants by Ben Stewart.

Second prizes

We are awarding three second-place prizes ($15,000) for the following submissions. These are listed in no particular order.

  • Violence against women and girls by Akhil
  • Sickle Cell Disease by anonymous
  • Shareholder activism by sbehmer

Honorable mentions

We are awarding $500 to the authors of the following entries. These are listed in no particular order.

  • Expanding access to infertility services in Low- and Middle-Income Countries by Soleine Scotney
  • Maternal morbidity by alexhill
  • Farmed Animal Welfare in Sub-Saharan Africa by anonymous
  • Indoor Air Quality to Reduce Infectious Respiratory Disease by Gavriel Kleinwaks, Alastair Fraser-Urquhart, and joshcmorrison
  • To WELLBY or not to WELLBY? Measuring non-health, non-pecuniary benefits using subjective wellbeing by JoelMcGuire, Samuel Dupret, and MichaelPlant
  • Tobacco harm reduction by kristof
  • Climate adaptation in low-income countries by Karthik Tadepalli
  • Social and behavioral science R&D by Anna Harvey and Stuart Buck
  • Family Planning: A Significant Opportunity for Impact by Sarah H and Ben Williamson
  • Improving diagnosis and treatment of bipolar spectrum disorders by Karolina Soltys
  • War between the US and China: A case study for epistemic challenges around China-related catastrophic risk by Jordan_Schneider and pradyusp
  • Improved quality control in science by Sophie Schauman
  • More animal advocacy R&D by anonymous
  • Adapting to Extreme Heat Exposure in South Asia by Surbhi B
  • Rich to Poor Country Spillovers by anonymous
  • Large-scale International Educational Migration: A shallow investigation by Jasmin Baier, Johannes Haushofer, and Hannah Lea Shaw
  • Training health workers to prevent newborn deaths by Marshall
  • Developmental Cognitive Neuroepidemiology by Hauke Hillebrandt
  • Differential Neurotechnology Development by mwcvitkovic
  • Short sleeper genes by JohnBoyle

We are contacting all prize recipients by email.

Good-faith submissions

Next week, we will begin the process of emailing everyone who submitted a good-faith submission in order to offer them participation awards of $200.

Future plans

As we stated in our announcement, this was a trial process for us. We’re grateful to those who sent us feedback and suggestions for how to improve. At this stage, we don’t know if or when we will repeat a process like this. We might write a public update later this year on what we have learned from this exercise and any plans to repeat this or a similar exercise again.

Thank you

We are grateful to Lizka Vaintrob and the other operators of the EA Forum, and to everyone who engaged with or submitted an entry to the Cause Exploration Prizes for making this possible.

Subscribe to new blog alerts
Open Philanthropy
Open Philanthropy
  • We’re Hiring!
  • Press Kit
  • Governance
  • Privacy Policy
  • Stay Updated
Mailing Address
Open Philanthropy
182 Howard Street #225
San Francisco, CA 94105
Email
info@openphilanthropy.org
Media Inquiries
media@openphilanthropy.org
Anonymous Feedback
Feedback Form

© Open Philanthropy 2025 Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License.

We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
Cookie SettingsAccept All
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
CookieDurationDescription
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
SAVE & ACCEPT