Updated 4-24-14: The center founders discuss METRICS in this just-posted 1:2:1 podcast.
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4-23-14: Stanford has a new center, called the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford, or METRICS for short, that will focus on ways to transform research practices to improve the reproducibility, efficiency and quality of scientific investigations.
When Stanford professor John Ioannidis, MD, DSc, discusses ideas on how METRICS might improve research quality, he points to the wealth of statistics within any newspaper’s sports section.
“Science needs as many ways to measure performance as sports do,” says Ioannidis. “More important, we need to find efficient approaches for enhancing this performance. There are many ideas on how to improve the efficiency of setting a research agenda, prioritizing research questions, optimizing study design, maximizing accuracy of information, minimizing biases, enhancing reporting of research, and aligning incentives and rewards so that research efforts become more successful. Possibly we can do better on all of these fronts.”
The center's other co-director is Steven Goodman, MD, MHS, PhD, professor of medicine and of health research and policy.
METRICS's core group of interdisciplinary scholars will be working on various aspects of meta-research, from methodologies to processes to policy. The center will also provide educational funding for students and scholars; organize collaborative working groups that include academics, policymakers, research funders and the public; and help establish similar initiatives worldwide.
You can learn more about “meta-research” and METRICS’s mission in the short interview above and in this release. Ioannidis discusses the center’s short- and long-term goals in the video clip below.
Previously: The Lancet documents waste in research, proposes solutions, “US effect” leads to publication of biased research, says Stanford’s John Ioannidis and Shaky evidence moves animal studies to humans, according to Stanford-led study
Photo in featured-entry box by Norbert Von Der Groeben
