Measuring Moonshots
February 3, 2022
The Biden administration has reignited the Cancer Moonshot, first launched by the Obama administration, with a goal of reducing the death rate from cancer by at least 50% over the next 25 years. But do such moonshots pay off for society? Walter Valdivia addresses this question in Issues, concluding that the answer is uncertain. Among other problems, he writes, there are few well-established causal links ascribing research to specific societal outcomes. But some useful lessons are emerging, he adds, going on to propose some criteria for assessing the impact of moonshots and some policy recommendations to make them most useful.