UChicago’s Market Shaping Accelerator
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This is a brief overview of a high-impact organization working to drive innovation that will benefit society.
The Market Shaping Accelerator (MSA) at the University of Chicago supports the development of innovation with large societal benefits, from vaccines for neglected diseases to critical clean energy technologies.
MSA does this by encouraging and enabling “pull mechanisms”—systems of incentives that drive innovation by channeling market forces, such as through cash prizes for technical accomplishments or advance market commitments (AMCs), where funders commit to purchasing successful innovations at a pre-specified price. MSA’s work has the potential to dramatically accelerate innovation in areas where traditional market forces have failed to deliver needed solutions.
What problem are they trying to solve?
Many of the world's most pressing challenges lack sufficient market incentives for innovation. WHO priority diseases, such as neglected tropical diseases, receive less than 0.6% of all health research grant funding, because the countries that would benefit most from these vaccines aren’t wealthy enough for pharmaceutical companies to justify development on commercial grounds. Another example is the development of technologies required to decarbonize heavy industry, such as so-called “clean steel”: there is no pure market incentive to develop low-carbon steel, and the existing process is cheap as a result of centuries of iterative innovation. Without targeted intervention to create stronger market incentives, these innovations may never materialize or could take decades longer than necessary, leading to continued suffering and missed opportunities to solve global challenges.
What do they do?
MSA takes a comprehensive approach to designing and implementing pull mechanisms that create market incentives for innovation. Their team—particularly the economists Rachel Glennerster and Nobel Prize winner Michael Kremer—played a pivotal role in the development of the AMC that resulted in the successful development of a vaccine for pneumococcus, which has prevented nearly 1 million deaths. MSA serves a unique role identifying the most promising AMC proposals, generating ideas for new AMCs, and working with various experts and funders to bring these proposals to life.
Why do we recommend them?
The construction of pull mechanisms like AMCs requires an in-depth understanding of economics, government policy, and technical expertise, which necessitates coordination between many parties. We believe MSA is uniquely positioned to provide this coordinating function. MSA has an exceptional track record and is uniquely positioned to scale the use of pull mechanisms globally. Their team includes some of the world's leading experts on market-shaping interventions, and their expertise on pull mechanisms is trusted by federal agencies, including the Department of Energy for green hydrogen initiatives and the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response for elastomeric respirators.
The potential impact of MSA's work is remarkable—their proposed interventions are significantly more cost-effective than typical alternatives. Their model of carefully selecting and supporting the most promising pull mechanisms, then working with government and philanthropic partners to implement them, creates a powerful multiplier effect: relatively small investments in MSA's work can unlock billions in funding for critical innovations.
