Speculative Technologies is a nonprofit industrial research lab for public good. Our mission is to create an abundant, wonder-filled future by unlocking powerful materials and manufacturing technologies that don’t have a home in other institutions. One of our major programs is the Brains accelerator, which helps talented scientists and technologists execute on ambitious research visions that are beyond the scope of individual academic labs, startups, or large companies. These visions range from upending the way we deal with carbon to how we understand chronic disease or observe the universe.
Coordinated research programs are an alternative model for scientific research and technology development that is too big or engineering-heavy for a single academic lab, but too research-heavy for startups. Since DARPA began in 1958, its successes (including the internet, GPS, and mRNA vaccines) have inspired the creation of many other coordinated research programs inside of the government (e.g., ARPA-E, ARPA-H, ARIA, SPRIND) and as nonprofits focused research organizations (e.g., Blueprint Biosecurity, Convergent Research, Speculative Technologies).
Coordinated research programs depend on empowered, visionary, and competent individuals with a critical balance of skills. However, there are very few channels for these programs to identify individuals with the interest and skills necessary to lead them.
Brains is working to change that by establishing a pathway and training for scientists to become leaders of coordinated research programs. The curriculum includes training in program development, managing scientific teams, and especially pitching to potential funders or employers. The goal is for graduates of Brains to manage a coordinated research program, whether that program already exists or not.
We ran the first cohort of the Brains accelerator in Jan-Apr 2024, and the second cohort in Feb-May 2025. We consider the program to have been successful - but our true metric is “how many fellows are leading coordinated research programs two years after completing Brains”, which is still quite a ways out! We would love to have an interim evaluation of the success of Brains so far, to enable us to improve our program. Unfortunately, we don’t have a huge sample size - each cohort begins with 16 scientists. 5 dropped out partway through the first cohort, and 1 dropped out partway through the second cohort.
The data we have available are:
- LinkedIn, CVs, and proposals from accepted fellows and not-selected candidates
- We receive approximately 100 applications each year
- Intermediate drafts and final 2-pagers and pitch presentations from the Brains fellows.
- These are the work products of the Brains accelerator
- Internal ratings of the fellows by Brains staff over the course of the program
- Where Are They Now information on the first cohort
(1) The student will develop a structured set of interview questions to use with Brains fellows (past and present) to solicit (i) the fellows’ suggestions for improving specific elements of the Brains program, and (ii), for graduates, the fellows’ outcomes after graduation.
(2) The student will interview at least half of the Brains fellows from both cohorts using the interview plan, and deliver summaries of those interviews.
(3) The student will use the results from the interviews, as well as the data already collected by the program, in order to deliver a preliminary program evaluation that provides estimates of the effect of the program and areas for improvement. The document will be shared with program funders to help them evaluate the continued support of the Brains program.
