Based on the prioritization exercises at the launch of the network and additional feedback from the advisory board, the steering committee decided on 4 focus areas for the NLRN. Those focus areas will be guiding the planning of our events, network activities and other projects. Please get in touch with us if you would like to collaborate on one of the themes or if you know about an initiative already working on the same topic.
Further collaboration with meta scientists in the Netherlands and beyond
Meta science is an important aspect of what we are doing as network. We would like to feedback evidence-based research tools and interventions to our community. At the same time, we believe that our network members have questions that can be answered by meta scientific research. Engaging in an exchange with meta scientists in the Netherlands and beyond is hence one of the focus areas of the NLRN.
Concretely, we will continue to support PYMS – Platform for young meta scientists by co-organizing meetings and possibly hosting a pre-conference to the NLRN symposium. We are looking for more ways to include meta scientists in the network and further the exchange of ideas between the network and scientists.
Inventory of materials, efforts and projects related to increasing reproducibility and replication
This inventory will include training materials and tutorials for researchers as well as materials for educators wanting to include reproducibility in their curriculum. It will also highlight upcoming training opportunities and blogposts where we invite educators who included reproducible workflows in their teaching or curricula.
Concretely, we want to use our website to link to training materials that already exist. Sources are for example the results of TIER2 and Osiris, but also videos and tutorials by other reproducibility networks or organizations like the Turing Way. We are about to add a training agenda, updated with Taxila input on our website.
Regarding the topic of introducing reproducibility to curricula, we would like to highlight examples on our blog and invite educators to contribute to our blog and share how they included reproducible workflows in their teaching. Please let us know if you would like to present a teaching initiative or know of someone who including the topic successfully into their teaching.
Details
Replication and Reproducibility in non-quantitative science and scholarship
Epistemic diversity calls for a more diverse representation of scholarship when discussing reproducibility. For a long time, the discussion has been driven by quantitative research areas with the biomedical and psychological sciences spearheading the discussion. We would like to include the perspectives of researchers using other methodologies in our activities.
Concretely, we will continue to reach out to scholars from non-quantitative fields. This includes but is not limited to qualitative research, research in the humanities and participatory and applied research, which is often conducted at universities of applied science and applied science institutes. Please let us know if you hear of relevant venues to get in touch with researchers working with those methodologies.
Connecting researchers and research support – facilitating communication and collaboration
A recurring complaint from researchers is that they are struggling to start implementing more reproducible pipelines. At the same time, we hear from colleagues in research support that they are frustrated with how little researchers seem to engage with them and ask for support that is available to them. We would like to find out how collaboration and communication between researchers and research support can be fostered.
Concretely, we are looking for collaborations to launch a pilot on how research support and researchers can communicate better. Let us know if you heard of any efforts in this regard. We are also planning to interview researchers with positive, neutral and negative experiences to find out more about expectations on both sides.