Paper short abstract:

We are investigating the community evolving around replication science and meta research. The presentation will offer first insights into the reasoning behind open science activism, with a focus on replication initiatives and supporting infrastructures.

Paper long abstract:

The current ‘replication crisis’ shares many of the concerns of older debates and promises to improve research practices across different fields by clarifying replicability as a concept and by updating methodological standards to an increasingly interdisciplinary and digital research environment. However, the current efforts to improve replicability have grown to a level that surpasses earlier debate. Replication studies are a central part of what many are seeing not just as contributions to improving research quality within a specific field but as a new, cross-disciplinary field of research sometimes called ‘replication science’ or ‘meta research’. In line with previous research in science studies about emerging research fields we conceptualize replication initiatives as a social movement.

As part of an ongoing research project, we are in the process of collecting information on the different types of replication initiatives in the social, behavioural and cognitive sciences, to provide a ‘cartography’ of the field and its community. To survey their epistemic and institutional properties, two main data sources are being used: published materials from these initiatives (papers, protocols, websites, etc.) and in-depth, qualitative interviews with participating researchers. A summary of our findings thus far will be presented, focusing on the argumentation and discourse culture within the movement.