The scientific community has grown increasingly aware of problems with the reliability and reproducibility of research in the health and social sciences. In part, these problems arise from a lack of transparency?including selective presentation of results and the failure to publicly share research data, materials, and code. Together with intentional scientific misconduct, these practices have contributed to the perception that research findings lack credibility and integrity calls to action by leaders of the scientific community, including the National Institutes of Health. Addressing deficiencies in researcher practices and workflows will require a multi-pronged approach The Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training (RT2) project aims to create the infrastructure and resources needed to promote transparent, reproducible workflows in universities and institutes throughout the U.S. RT2 will assemble an interdisciplinary group of thought leaders to prioritize challenges in current research practice and identify promising solutions. This will inform an annual conference and curricula that increases awareness of the value of open science, and facilitates the adoption of practices and tools designed to make research more reproducible. Annual conferences will be used not only to promote the diffusion of new tools and ideas, but also to identify the most effective channels for changing researcher behavior. The RT2 team will longitudinally track changes in the practices of RT2 faculty and learners through periodic surveys, qualitative feedback, and web analytics (including publication records, use of trial registries and data repositories, and activity on open science platforms). curriculum will be redefined each year, producing a continuously refreshed body of tools and methods informed by evolving evidence. By targeting doctoral students, postdocs, and early career researchers as learners, RT2 will have a direct impact on the current generation of health and social science researchers. as RT2 faculty and learners mainstream research transparency within their own courses, research programs, and scientific practice. , resulting in recent . The RT2 The project will also affect future generations of scientists,
We seek to accelerate progress toward more transparent, reproducible health and social science research, particularly in the context of growing demand for evidence-based policymaking. To achieve this, we propose to develop, deliver, and evaluate five annual interdisciplinary conferences on the challenges and solutions for improved researcher norms and practices. Faculty and learners will be representative of the public health, economics, psychology, and political science disciplines in order to drive sustained impact on the current and next generation of health and social science researchers.
