Improving the way research is done: the UK Reproducibility Network

Written by Natalie Hunter, Graduate Trainee – Research Landscape at Wellcome Trust

 

As a graduate at Wellcome, I get the opportunity to be involved in so many exciting initiatives, including working with the people aiming to tackle some of the biggest challenges in science and research.

 

Attending the first annual meeting of the UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN) last Friday is a great example of this. UKRN is a grassroots, researcher-led organisation with the aim of improving scientific integrity, with a particular focus on the reproducibility of research. There’s been a lot written about the so-called ‘reproducibility crisis’ in research recently, but it essentially boils down to this: were the experiments conducted in a non-biased way, blinded where possible? Have all of the results been reported – including negative ones? Were appropriate controls used? Could the study be repeated by somebody else and the same results be found? However, it has become increasingly obvious that a number of papers, some with very influential results, have not been conducted to this standard. For example in some areas such as preclinical cancer research,  studies estimate as many as 70-90% of papers have irreproducible results. This links to the wider problem of research culture we’ve identified an­­d are working on here at Wellcome.

 

UKRN was founded to increase standards in research. Lead by four researchers – Marcus Munafò (Psychologist, University of Bristol), Laura Fortunato (Anthropologist, University of Oxford), Chris Chambers (Neuroscientist, University of Cardiff) and Malcolm Macleod (Neuroscientist, University of Edinburgh), the network is made up of a steering committee and two groups: Local Network Leads and Stakeholders.

 

The Local Network Leads are researchers, each representing a university. Together, they provide on-the-ground support within universities to help other researchers and policymakers navigate this complex area. UKRN wants local network leads to create excitement and buzz about doing high quality research. They support for example local ‘Reproducibilitea journal clubs’, where researchers collectively review research papers and discuss methodological issues.

 

The Stakeholders group is made up of representatives from research-related organisations, including Wellcome, UKRI, MRC, Nature, PLOS, JISC, UK Research Integrity Office, Universities UK and many more. Each organisation contributes small grants to UKRN, including Wellcome. By engaging these two key groups, UKRN aims to achieve both a bottom-up and top-down influence on UK research culture.

 

I attended the second half of the meeting, which was specifically for the Stakeholders. The focus of this meeting was the work plan for the year ahead. Discussion was lively, ranging from the responsibility of funders like Wellcome to those of journals such as Nature, data sharing and open access policies, the value of ‘metaresearch’ – or ‘research on research’ – and expanding discussions on these issues beyond biomedical science. The incentive structures within academia came up frequently as a key cause for concern. With publishing in a high-impact journal still seen as the key measure of success in science, despite intitives such as DORA, the concern is that pressure to publish could lead researchers to behave less than perfectly. As one attendee said, this is a “systemic issue, which needs a systemic solution”. That’s where UKRN’s strength lies. They have managed to get so many key stakeholders in a room at once to discuss these issues and commit to finding solutions that it feels like real change is on the horizon.

 

The potential of UKRN is exciting, and there is a sense that it is capitalising on a cultural moment in science right now; those involved feel there is a real appetite for change from a number of directions. But it’s important to remember it’s a very small organisation, with an administrator as the only paid member of staff – everybody else is involved on a purely voluntary basis. There’s only so much an organisation like that can achieve in a year. However the plans UKRN have set out for the next year are bold and ambitious: it will for example continue ongoing work (funded through the Wellcome Research on Research scheme) on linking the registered reports system with funding decisions; it will plan a large conference for next year, bringing together relevant parties for extended conversations and workshops; it will continue to grow its network and build an evidence base for improving research integrity.

 

So, watch this space – and the UKRN twitter account – as this network will only continue to grow and develop its influence over the coming year, with support from Wellcome and other funders.

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