Academics and researchers must apply for grant funding. These grants provide the financial support required to carry out the research proposed in the grant. These funds are used to purchase equipment, pay salaries, cover publication and travel costs, etc. Being successful in a national funding competition is a key indicator of success. Not only can the researchers carry out the
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The pressure to publish and current incentives that reward highly-cited discoveries leads to research findings that are not reproducible and inadvertently results in the natural selection of bad science. It is difficult to encourage scientists to take effort in conducting reproducible and rigorous research without better incentives. What kinds of metrics and incentives might reward scientists for conducting sound science?
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Many people learn to write computer code by attending short courses, or learning off supervisors or colleagues, then figure things out as they go. As beginner or novice programmers, it is not always easy to work out whether code is well documented or efficient. So it is nice when more experienced users offer advice on good coding practices. A recent
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Self reflection is important. As a human endeavour with the whole of society as its beneficiary, science should also have introspection; looking in on itself to identify things worth celebrating, as well as things that need improvement. In a recent article, Ioannidis explains why we need meta-research: research on research. Meta-research The goal of meta-research is to understand and improve
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In a previous post, we profiled the EQUATOR network and reporting guidelines. These guidelines stress transparency in reporting study methods, and most are relevant to study designs in clinical research, such as randomised controlled trials, epidemiological studies and systematic reviews. Taking a different vein, the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines were developed to enhance transparency in reporting of study
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Statistics are not broken. The problem lies with how scientists use, interpret and report them. At the end of 2017, Nature asked five influential statisticians to recommend a key change that would improve science. Adjust for human cognition The first change was proposed by Jeff Leek of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and it is based on the
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