That is, the funding announcement says, “The applicant must be prepared to engage with the CRO immediately after the start of an award, and provide

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2024-07-10 00:30:03

That is, the funding announcement says, “The applicant must be prepared to engage with the CRO immediately after the start of an award, and provide required research methods, protocols, and unique experimental materials as soon as possible.”

If we think of a spectrum from “most likely to need replication” to “least likely to need replication,” this announcement is selecting for studies at the latter end of the spectrum.

After all, researchers doing fraudulent or poor-quality research are the least likely to ask for replication funds for their own work! They just want to skate under the radar when it comes to replication.

The only people who would bother applying for extra funds to replicate their own work are the ones who are the most worried about research quality in the first place.

This is the paradox of replication: We should mainly replicate researchers who are nervous and want to avoid it, whereas if researchers are eager to replicate their own work, we can probably feel satisfied and move on.