Abstract

The importance of metascience scholarship has been evident for decades. In the 1960’s an early metascience study showed that a high percentage of sampled papers in 10 leading medical journals drew invalid conclusions. Yet, only recently has the growth of the science of science and its spotlighting of the “replication crisis” and the endemic misuse of statistics in some fields fueled the evolution of metascience into a unique academic discipline. The rise of metascience raises thorny issues for funders who principally support “traditional” forms of basic research such as original data generation and hypothesis driven discovery science. To such funders, supporting metascience projects can require a departure from business as usual and engender negative feedback from scientific constituents who see metascience as a distraction. When and how to make decisions to support metascience can be a challenge, especially for life sciences funders whose focus is on translational bench research. A mindset change is required for a funder to embrace metascience as original scholarship contributing to the advancement of knowledge that addresses societal concerns. Funders are often focused on advancing knowledge needed to solve important societal problems such as education, income inequality, and health care. Continuing to fund improperly designed studies generating unreliable findings is unlikely to provide the solutions we seek. During this session, public and private funders will discuss when and how they have supported metascience research, what they see as the opportunities in supporting metascience, and what challenges they see as more funders are asked to support metascience.