Grad students don’t get to publish a thesis on reproduction. Everyone from the undergraduate research assistant to the tenured professor with research chairs are hyper focused on “publishing” as much “positive result” on “novel” work as possible

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Kinrany 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Publishing a replication could be a prerequisite to getting the degree

The question is, how can universities coordinate to add this requirement and gain status from it

	▲	ihaveajob 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think Arxiv and similar could contribute positively by listing replications/falsifications, with credit to the validating authors. That would be enough of an incentive for aspiring researchers to start making a dent.

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soiltype 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

But that seems almost trivially solved. In software it's common to value independent verification - e.g. code review. Someone who is only focused on writing new code instead of careful testing, refactoring, or peer review is widely viewed as a shitty developer by their peers. Of course there's management to consider and that's where incentives are skewed, but we're talking about a different structure. Why wouldn't the following work?

A single university or even department could make this change - reproduction is the important work, reproduction is what earns a PhD. Or require some split, 20-50% novel work maybe is also expected. Now the incentives are changed. Potentially, this university develops a reputation for reliable research. Others may follow suit.

Presumably, there's a step in this process where money incentivizes the opposite of my suggestion, and I'm not familiar with the process to know which.

Is it the university itself which will be starved of resources if it's not pumping out novel (yet unreproducible) research?

	▲	DSMan195276 20 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Presumably, there's a step in this process where money incentivizes the opposite of my suggestion, and I'm not familiar with the process to know which. > Is it the university itself which will be starved of resources if it's not pumping out novel (yet unreproducible) research? Researchers apply for grants to fund their research, the university is generally not paying for it and instead they receive a cut of the grant money if it is awarded (IE. The grant covers the costs to the university for providing the facilities to do the research). If a researcher could get funding to reproduce a result then they could absolutely do it, but that's not what funds are usually being handed out for.
	▲	worik an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> In software it's common to value independent verification - e.g. code review. Someone who is only focused on writing new code instead of careful testing, refactoring, or peer review is widely viewed as a shitty developer by their peers. That is good practice It is rare, not common. Managers and funders pay for features Unreliable insecure software sells very well, so making reliable secure software is a "waste of money", generally