IFP is currently hiring for multiple roles. See below for an overview of the organization and a description of each open position.
We will pay a bounty of $3,000 for a referral that leads to a successful hire. Applicants can mention who referred them in the application form.
About IFP
The Institute for Progress (IFP) is a non-partisan think tank focused on innovation policy. Our organization works to accelerate and shape the direction of scientific, technological, and industrial progress. IFP works with policymakers across the political spectrum in Washington, DC to make it easier to build the future in the United States. You can read more about our vision and mission in our founding essay, written by co-founders Alec Stapp and Caleb Watney.
Fellow/Senior Fellow, Metascience Team
About IFP’s metascience team
Despite vast increases in research funding and scientific personnel, evidence suggests we’re experiencing stagnating scientific productivity. New scientific discoveries are the basis of long-term economic growth and social progress, but we know surprisingly little about how different incentives and organizational models shape the rate and direction of science.
Our metascience portfolio focuses on applying the scientific method to the way we fund and structure science itself. Through experimentation, data collection, and analysis, we work to determine what institutions, incentives, and funding models most effectively advance the frontier of knowledge, using this knowledge to advocate for policy change.
Examples of our team’s focuses:
- Funding mechanism experimentation: Designing and advocating for pilot programs to test different funding approaches like lotteries, fast grants, or golden tickets, or person-based rather than project-based funding models
- Tools for good science policy: Creating targeted resources and supporting collaborations to help policymakers reduce bureaucratic bottlenecks and accelerate breakthrough scientific discoveries
- Research on the structure of science: Studying how scientific research is organized across universities, government labs, and industry to identify practices that enhance productivity and innovation in different research environments
- Cross-team collaboration: Working alongside IFP’s high-skilled immigration team on STEM talent issues, the emerging technology team on AI applications for scientific discovery, and the biotechnology team on research regulations and clinical trial reform
Responsibilities
We’re seeking candidates with expertise and interest in one or more of the following areas:
- Agency engagement: Working with federal science agencies to design and implement reforms to funding mechanisms and institutional processes
- Metascience research: Conducting economic and data analysis of scientific institutions, designing experiments to evaluate funding mechanisms, and measuring scientific productivity, likely via ongoing partnerships
- Congressional engagement: Building relationships with Hill staff and Members of Congress, developing legislative proposals, and identifying opportunities for metascience policy advancement
Our Fellow and Senior Fellow positions are full-time, ongoing positions. In these roles, you’ll be responsible for things like:
- Interacting with policymakers
- Conducting policy and technical research
- Writing pieces for the IFP website and other outlets
- Managing coalitions involving stakeholders across industry, academic, civil society, and government
Senior Fellows will also be expected and encouraged to independently spot good opportunities/ideas, and execute on them with little oversight.
We encourage both Fellows and Senior Fellows to pursue creative strategies to achieve policy impact on important, tractable, and neglected policy issues. At the end of the day, we assess our work based on our counterfactual influence over tangible policy outcomes, rather than on our number of white papers written or page views.
Qualifications
- You’re excited to take on an entrepreneurial role in one or more areas of Congressional engagement, agency engagement, or metascience research. You enjoy identifying high-leverage opportunities and are comfortable operating in a fast-paced, impact-focused environment.
- You’re interested in communicating about technical topics in a way that’s both accurate and accessible to a wide audience, using a wide variety of tools (e.g., Twitter, data visualization, interactive microsites, presentations).
- You are detail-oriented with strong analytical skills and a demonstrated ability to conduct and communicate research.
- For Fellows: you’re familiar with technical and/or policy topics related to metascience or innovation economics, and you have experience working on either policy engagement or research evaluation. Experience working in policy roles is a plus, but not a hard requirement.
- For Senior Fellows: you have a track record of delivering thoughtful, high-impact technical or policy projects. Our current Senior Fellows generally have around ~8 years of policy or relevant scientific/technical experience (e.g., PhD-level), but we don’t have hard and fast rules — some kinds of experiences will be much more relevant for our team.
In addition to these qualifications, there are a handful of different areas that you could focus on in a role on the metascience team at IFP. At least one of the following probably describes you:
- You’re a strategic thinker obsessed with the shape of the national science enterprise. You’ve run major research projects, built grant programs, or mapped large knowledge domains — and you’re motivated to redesign how research agendas get set and funded.
- You’re a policy entrepreneur with experience on the Hill, in federal agencies, or at a think tank — comfortable crafting legislation or navigating bureaucratic systems to get science policy reforms across the finish line.
- You’re a scientist (e.g., biologist, neuroscientist, engineer) motivated to improve how science is structured, and you bring rigorous research skills and a reform mindset to institutional change.
- You’re always asking how to measure things. You thrive with data and are excited by designing and implementing pilot programs that iterate toward better models.
- You’re a deep-dive writer with a track record of long-form analysis — possibly already running a newsletter or writing regular essays — who brings clarity, originality, and intellectual rigor to complex issues in science and policy.
- You have an entrepreneurial mindset and self-starter energy. You move fast, get traction, and figure things out on the fly. You’re less into writing memos no one reads and more into making real stuff happen.
Ideally, applicants should be willing to live and work in Washington, D.C. If you feel like you might be a great candidate, but aren’t able to do this, please explain why in your application form.
Salary and benefits
- IFP offers a highly competitive compensation package determined by a variety of factors when formulating an offer, including but not limited to: roles and responsibilities, work experience, education/training, skills, and expertise.
- Our benefits package for full-time employees includes unlimited PTO + paid holidays, generous health benefits for you and your family dependents, 12 weeks of paid parental leave, a 5% annual retirement plan contribution, and support for productive remote work.
Applying
- Applications close on May 11th, 2025, but will be reviewed on a rolling basis. We encourage you to submit your application as early as possible.
- We’d like candidates to start in Summer 2025.
- Applicants will be expected to share a writing sample or project on a topic relevant to the team’s scope.
- We may be able to sponsor work visas if you lack work authorization in the United States.
- We can imagine people from a range of backgrounds excelling in this role, and we encourage you to apply even if you’re unsure whether you meet the qualifications listed.
