This grant supports research led by Christopher Snyder of Dartmouth College, in collaboration with Michael Kremer and the University of Chicago’s Market Shaping Accelerator, to explore how microeconomic theory can inform the design of mechanisms for funding innovation. The team will compare “push” strategies, such as research grants, with “pull” strategies, like prizes or Advanced Market Commitments, to identify optimal approaches for driving socially beneficial innovation.  Beyond cataloguing examples that seem to work under certain circumstances, the goal here  is to develop a comprehensive theory for explaining how and when to design better incentives both for the generation and uptake of new ideas.  Outputs will include academic papers and practical frameworks to fund innovation effectively, given real-world constraints faced by funding agencies and philanthropists.