The Pivotal Questions (PQ) initiative reframes our approach. Rather than directly prioritizing the research for impact potential, here we works with impact-focused organizations to elicit their highest-value questions . We work to operationalize these questions, connect them to credible research, and commission experts to evaluate this research and inform the pivotal questions.
Core Idea
The Unjournal commissions public, rigorous evaluations of quantitative social science research.
Rather than selecting papers first, PQ asks “Which unanswered, quantifiable questions matter most to organizations’ policy or funding choices?”
We prioritize questions with the greatest value of information — i.e., research that could meaningfully change decisions.
This “question-first” approach aims to improve alignment, efficiency, and transparency in how we drive impact.
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We begin by gathering succinct, quantifiable questions from impact-oriented organizations and the wider community. These questions are grounded in real decision contexts and may also refer to a relevant research paper for context.
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Our field specialist team reviews and prioritizes the submitted questions. We publicly present them for feedback, refine their phrasing and scope, and where possible, translate them into operationalizable claims that can be measured, tested, or forecasted.
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For each selected question, our field specialist team curates a body of relevant research, providing context on how this work may inform the pivotal questions. We then recruit expert evaluators to assess the research evidence and its implications for the pivotal questions, encouraging deliberation. We elicit experts’ beliefs and forecasts about these questions, including through Metaculus style interfaces, quantifying their calibrated uncertainty, enabling aggregation.
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We encourage feedback from both the authors of the evaluated research and the organizations that originally proposed the questions. An evaluation manager then integrates these perspectives into a synthesis report that aggregates and explains the estimates and transparently communicates the implications.
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The final evaluations and pivotal questions reports are published openly on our platforms as well as promoted on social media and linked to academic and bibliometric databases. To optimize impact, we also produce accessible summaries, visualizations, dashboards, and outreach materials designed for both decision-makers and the broader research community.