What Can Universities Do?
[From the blog “A manifesto for reproducible science” by Marcus Munafò, published at wonke.com]
“…several initiatives exist that can support universities keen to improve their research quality and culture. The Forum for Responsible Research Metrics promotes the better use of metrics, for example in recruitment and promotion procedures, and in 2018 hosted “The turning tide: a new culture of research metrics”. This highlighted that more effort is needed to embed relevant principles in institutions and foster more sensitive management frameworks. And in mid-September the University of Bristol will host a workshop for key stakeholders (funders, publishers, journals) to discuss the formation of a network of universities that will coordinate and share training and best practice.”
“This network will be an academic-led initiative, ensuring not only that efforts to improve research quality are coordinated, but also that they are evaluated (given that well-intentioned efforts may lead to unintended consequences), and designed with the needs of the academic research community in mind. It will allow the myriad of new initiatives across the UK to be brought together, and new initiatives to be developed. The current focus on the quality of scientific research is best understood not as a crisis but as an exciting opportunity to innovate and modernise. UK science has a well-deserved reputation for being world-leading, but to remain world leading we will need to embrace this opportunity.”
The Replication Network 