Making “Big, Risky Bets” to Advance Health
September 21, 2022
In describing hopes for the just-launched Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H, a New York Times opinion columnist writes that the organization will draw a fundamental lesson—“make big, risky bets”—from its groundbreaking progenitor in the Defense Department’s DARPA. In Issues, Regina E. Dugan and Kaigham J. Gabriel, former DARPA leaders, describe how their new organization, Wellcome Leap, combines the strengths of this high-risk, high-reward model with the operational independence that philanthropy provides. In this way, they have built a worldwide network of scientists and engineers ready and able to challenge conventional wisdom and solve urgent global problems.