A New Approach to The Honest Broker

I am experimenting with crowdsourced research support

Hello subscribers, old and new!

As I embark on a year-long academic sabbatical (heading to Europe in August to contribute to the development of a new pandemic research center), I am going to explore some new ways of doing things around here.

Starting today, I am going to experiment with using this newsletter and its community of supporters to crowdsource support for my research. I do not presently have government grants or foundation support and I do not take money from corporations. In fact, I have learned that working at the messy and contested intersection of science and politics can actually reduce the chances of such support. That’s a trade-off I am willing to make.

But that also means that significant line items — like summer salary, sabbatical salary, unreimbursed work travel, research assistance and so on — go unsupported. To help cover these costs I have added a subscription option to this newsletter, which is open to both old and new subscribers.

For now, I am continuing to leave all my posts available to everyone. So if you are a current subscriber, then you’ll keep getting everything. The experiment is to make available the “subscription” option for all those who appreciate and would like to support my work. It is not (for now at least) to buy access to my writing on this platform. I’m not sure how this experiment will work out, but let’s see.

Thanks for reading and supporting!