May 21, 2025  –  May 23, 2025

Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training (RT2) 2025

The Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS) will hold its next Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training (RT2) in Berkeley, CA on May 21 – 23, 2025! RT2 provides participants with an overview of tools and best practices for transparent and reproducible social science research. This year, we will highlight the credibility and reliability of findings in behavioral and social science research (BSSR), especially related to aging and health disparities (though training in this field is not required to participate). The curriculum will be developed and delivered by academic leaders in the open science movement as well as experts on aging and health disparities. The three-day training will include space for collaborative work and hands-on skill building. Participants are encouraged to bring their own research questions and ideas so they can seek support and feedback from instructors and other attendees.

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Feb 27, 2025  |  Berkeley, CA 94720

2025 BITSS Annual Meeting

We’re excited to announce that the 13th BITSS Annual Meeting will be held at UC Berkeley on Thursday, February 27! This one-day event will bring together leading voices from academia, policy, and the scholarly publishing world to discuss new research and developments in research transparency, reproducibility, and ethics.

We are thrilled to welcome Brian Nosek as our keynote speaker. Brian is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Center for Open Science (COS), where he leads initiatives designed to increase the openness, integrity, and reproducibility of research across disciplines. Brian will share his insights into how the research culture is evolving and what we, as a community, can do to push these changes further. We look forward to an engaging discussion on the role of institutions, researchers, and systemic reforms in fostering scientific progress.

If you are interested in presenting your research at the Annual Meeting, please submit your presentation ideas here by November 24, 2024. We look forward to reviewing your submissions! If you have any questions about presentations, please contact BITSS Program Manager Jo Weech at jweech@berkeley.edu.

Jun 5, 2024  –  Jun 7, 2024

Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training (RT2) 2024

The Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences will hold its 12th Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training (RT2) in Berkeley, CA, June 5-7, 2024! 

RT2 provides participants with an overview of tools and best practices for transparent and reproducible social science research. This year, we will highlight the credibility and reliability of findings in behavioral and social science research (BSSR), especially related to aging and health disparities (though training in this field is not required to participate). The curriculum will be developed and delivered by academic leaders in the open science movement as well as experts on aging and health disparities. The three-day training will include space for collaborative work and hands-on skill building. Participants are encouraged to bring their own research questions and ideas so they can seek support and feedback from instructors and other attendees.

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Mar 7, 2024  –  Mar 7, 2024

Berkeley Replication Games

Hosted in collaboration between the American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP) and the Economics for Equity at Berkeley (BEE), the Berkeley Replication Games will be a one-day event, held at UC Berkeley, focused on bringing underrepresented researchers together to collaborate on replicating social science papers published in high-ranking journals.

Participants will be granted co-authorship on a meta-paper combining the replications and will have the opportunity to publish their work. Participants will join a small team of 3-5 members with similar research interests. Virtual participants are also welcome.

Interested researchers or teams should send their field of study and preferred statistical software to: Abel Brodeur (abrodeur@uottowa.ca). More information about the games can be found here.

Mar 8, 2024  –  Mar 8, 2024  |  Berkeley, CA 94720

2024 BITSS Annual Meeting

The BITSS Annual Meeting will bring together actors from academia, scholarly publishing, and policy to share novel research and discuss efforts to improve the credibility of social science by advancing research transparency, reproducibility, rigor, and ethics. The 12th BITSS Annual Meeting will be held on Friday, March 8 in Berkeley, CA.

We are delighted to hear from keynote speaker Arthur Lupia, who worked to advance scientific credibility when he served as Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation, leading its Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate from 2018-2022. We look forward to hearing his perspectives on the progress we’ve made as a research community—and the steps that lie ahead.

Oct 13, 2023  –  Oct 13, 2023

BITSS Workshop: Forecasting in the Social Sciences

Led by Stefano DellaVigna (UC Berkeley) and Eva Vivalt (The University of Toronto), the 2023 workshop brought together leaders from across academic disciplines to present new research findings, share knowledge, and continue charting a path forward for prediction in the social sciences. We were eager to showcase how the Social Science Prediction Platform, which has over 4,500 completed forecasting surveys for over 50 projects, is facilitating the collection and cataloging of forecasts for the broader research community.

The event featured Anna Dreber (Stockholm School of Economics) as the keynote speaker.

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May 17, 2023  –  May 19, 2023  |  Berkeley, CA

Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training (RT2) 2023

BITSS held its Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training (RT2) on May 17-19.

RT2 provided participants with an overview of tools and practices for transparent and reproducible social science research. The program was developed and delivered by leading researchers from across the social sciences and provide participants with opportunities for collaborative work and skills-building. Participants exchanged feedback and received support from instructors through daily sessions.

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Mar 3, 2023  –  Mar 3, 2023

2023 BITSS Annual Meeting

The BITSS Annual Meeting brought together actors from academia, scholarly publishing, and policy to share novel research and discuss efforts to improve the credibility of social science by advancing research transparency, reproducibility, rigor, and ethics. The 11th BITSS Annual Meeting was held on Friday, March 3 in Berkeley, CA.

We are delighted to have heard from keynote speaker Guido Imbens, the 2021 Nobel Prize Laureate, as well as two keynote panel conversations, including Undersecretary of Finance of Chile, Claudia Sanhueza, and CEO of IDinsight and Chair of the Board of Directors of 3ie, Ruth Levine.

Mar 23, 2023  –  May 2, 2023

BITSS Open Research Seminar (Spring 2023)

The Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS) hosted the Spring 2023 Open Research Seminar (ORS), a webinar series to promote and share knowledge about the use of tools and practices for transparency and reproducibility in social science research. The ORS was an opportunity for researchers to showcase applications of specific tools and practices (e.g., developing a lab protocol for reproducibility, building a website to catalog open datasets, etc.) or evaluations of the effectiveness of existing tools and practices (e.g., results-blind peer review and publication bias). All webinars were free and open to register to the general public. Read More →

Jun 1, 2022  –  Jun 3, 2022  |  Chicago, IL

CTREE 2022 Panel: Teaching the Evolving Standards of Reproducibility

June 2 – BITSS and partners hosted a panel session entitled “Teaching the Evolving Standards of Reproducibility” at 2:30 – 4:30 pm ET at the eleventh AEA Conference on Teaching and Research in Economic Education (CTREE) in Chicago, IL. Speakers Lars Vilhuber (Cornell University), Fernando Hoces de la Guardia (BITSS), and Bárbara Flores Arenas (University of Chile):

  • Discussed the evolving standards of reproducibility in economics, challenges and lessons learned from efforts led by the AEA Data Editor, and opportunities for improvement in the teaching and conduct of research;
  • Presented the Social Science Reproduction Platform, an online resource for assessing and teaching computational reproducibility; and
  • Presented approaches and resources for teaching reproducibility at the undergraduate level.

The complete conference program is here.

Oct 4, 2022  –  Dec 6, 2022

BITSS Open Research Seminar (Fall 2022)

The Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS) hosted the Fall 2022 Open Research Seminar (ORS), a webinar series to promote and share knowledge about the use of tools and practices for transparency and reproducibility in social science research. The ORS was an opportunity for researchers to showcase applications of specific tools and practices (e.g., developing a lab protocol for reproducibility, building a website to catalog open datasets, etc.) or evaluations of the effectiveness of existing tools and practices (e.g., results-blind peer review and publication bias). All webinars were free and open to register to the general public.

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May 4, 2022  –  May 6, 2022

Catalyst Workshop: Doing Open Science

May 4-6 – Catalyst Ignacio Sarmiento-Barbieri (Universidad de los Andes) will host “Doing Open Science: Design of experiments, software and use of data in research”, a training on open-source tools for open, transparent, and reproducible social science research. All sessions will be held virtually and will be taught in Spanish. Researchers from any institution may apply. Learn more here and apply by April 7.

Jan 7, 2022  –  Jan 7, 2022

BITSS at ASSA 2022

Join two sessions with BITSS staff members on Jan. 7 at the 2022 Allied Social Science Associations Annual Meeting:

  • At 3:45 pm-5:45 pm PT, Ted Miguel will moderate a panel discussion titled “Ethics, Transparency, and Innovation in Economics Publishing” with Pinelopi Goldberg (Yale University), Imran Rasul (University College London), Andrew Foster (Brown University), and Jeannie Gersen (Harvard University).
  • At 7am-1 pm ET, Aleks Bogdanoski will be available to discuss a poster titled “Using the Social Science Reproduction Platform to Teach Reproducibility.”

Sep 22, 2021  –  Sep 23, 2021

Catalyst workshop: Transparency and Reproducibility in Health Economics

Sep. 22-23 — As part of her Catalyst project, Andrea Salas-Ortiz is organizing an online workshop to promote, improve, and implement tools for transparency and reproducibility in health economics research. The workshop will be held online on September 22-23 and is open to academics, early career researchers, and PhD students. If you are interested in the workshop please take a look at the program and complete this registration survey by September 5.

Jul 14, 2021  –  Jul 14, 2021

“Development Research in Practice” Book Launch Event

July 14 — Starting at 8 am PT, join the launch event for “Development Research in Practice: The DIME Analytics Data Handbook.” This handbook provides a step-by-step guide to high-quality, reproducible data work over the full life cycle of an empirical research project. It shares the lessons, tools, and processes developed within the World Bank’s Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) department, and compiles them into a single narrative of best practices for data work.

The launch event will feature an introduction by Maria Ruth Jones (DIME Analytics) and a panel discussion with Marshall Burke (Stanford University), Ruth Levine (IDinsight), Edward Miguel (UC Berkeley and CEGA/BITSS), and Lars Vilhuber (Cornell University). Register here.

 

Jun 12, 2021  –  Jun 13, 2021

Catalyst workshop: Pre-doctoral Research in Economics 2021

June 12-13 – Catalyst Jun Wong and colleagues Coly Elhai and Dominic Russel hosted the Pre-doctoral Research in Economics (PRE) 2021 virtual workshop, which provides an introduction to pre-doctoral education opportunities and research practices for transparency and reproducibility. Fernando Hoces de la Guardia gave the keynote presentation, titled “How Research Transparency Can Improve Social Science: Quality and Quantity” (slides here) and Catalysts Anna Josephson and Jeffrey Michler gave a presentation titled “Quantitative standards and pre-analysis plans”. See all presentations here.

The workshop was supported by BITSS and the PREDOC consortium.

 

Jun 2, 2021  –  Jun 2, 2021

Workshop: Teaching Reproducible Research in the Classroom

Jun. 2, online —  At 3-5 pm PT, BITSS, the AEA Data Editor, and the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis will host a joint workshop at the Tenth Annual AEA Conference on Teaching and Research in Economic Education (CTREE). The workshop will give an overview of the evolving landscape of reproducibility standards in economics, teach foundational skills in data literacy for reproducibility, demonstrate a curricular module for conducting and reporting reproductions, and discuss opportunities for instructors, students, and researchers to contribute to these ongoing efforts. Learn more and register here.

May 21, 2021  –  May 21, 2021

Webinar: Instruction in Reproducible Research

May 21, 2021 — BITSS Project Scientist Fernando Hoces de la Guardia presented the Social Science Reproduction Platform (SSRP), currently in beta, as part of the Spring 2021 “Instruction in Reproducible Research” webinar series hosted by Project TIER. The webinar series included nine other presentations exploring the educational purposes of teaching students transparent and reproducible methods of quantitative data analysis. Watch his presentation below (video courtesy of Project TIER) and see other presentations given as part of the webinar series here.

Feb 23, 2021  –  Feb 23, 2021

Presentation: Open Policy Analysis

Feb. 23, 2021 — Fernando Hoces de la Guardia gave a presentation on Open Policy Analysis (OPA) as part of a webinar organized by Métodos em Pauta (Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil), an academic initiative on inference in political science and related fields. Watch the presentation (in Spanish) here.

 

 

Feb 22, 2021  –  Feb 23, 2021

Panel: Open Science – Increasing Rigor, Reproducibility, Transparency, and Dissemination

Feb. 23, 2021 — BITSS Faculty Director Ted Miguel chaired a panel titled “Increasing Rigor, Reproducibility, Transparency, and Dissemination” as part of the Science of Behavior Change Capstone Conference organized by the National Institutes of Health Feb. 22-23, 2021. The panel featured the following presentations:

  • Reimagining science as truly open and inclusive, Alison Ledgerwood, University of California, Davis
  • An open science behavior change model from theory to practice, Brian Nosek, Center for Open Science
  • The art of open science: Imitation, inspiration, and innovation, Chaning Jang, The Busara Center for Behavioral Economics

See the program and find videos here.

Feb 22, 2021  –  May 14, 2021

Catalyst course: Improving (Our) Science — Replication, Reporting, and Openness

Don Moore and Leif Nelson (Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley) offer “Improving (Our) Science: Replication, Reporting, and Openness”, an online course that is open for registration to PhD students interested in open science. The goal of the course is to learn about the newest standards for scientific openness, and how they influence the reporting and interpretation of empirical evidence. Learn more in the course syllabus here.

Contact Don Moore to register.

Jan 7, 2021  –  Jan 8, 2021

9th BITSS Annual Meeting

Jan. 7-8, 2021, online — BITSS held its 9th Annual Meeting on January 7-8, 2021. The BITSS Annual Meeting brings together actors from academia, scholarly publishing, and policy to share novel research and discuss efforts to improve the credibility of social science by advancing research transparency, reproducibility, rigor, and ethics. Read More →

Nov 13, 2020  –  Nov 13, 2020

Advancing Computational Reproducibility in the Social Sciences at the CNI Fall 2020 Virtual Membership Meeting

Nov. 10, online — At 11 am PT, Katie Hoeberling and Fernando Hoces de la Guardia will give a presentation titled “Advancing Computational Reproducibility in the Social Sciences: Creating and Using Digital Reproduction Records as a Pedagogical Tool” as part of the Fall 2020 Virtual Membership Meeting of the Coalition for Networked Information. Learn more and find the schedule here.

Sep 21, 2020  –  Sep 25, 2020

Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training (RT2) – 2020 Virtual

Sep. 21-25, 2020, online — BITSS held its Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training (RT2) online. RT2 provides participants with an overview of tools and practices for transparent and reproducible social science research. The program is developed and delivered by leading academic researchers from across the social sciences and will provide participants with opportunities for collaborative work and skills-building. Participants were able to exchange feedback and receive support from instructors through daily online discussion forums. Following the training, BITSS also facilitated RT2 “office hours,” where participants met individually with instructors and received guidance on their research questions and ideas.

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Jul 28, 2020  –  Jul 28, 2020

Webinar: Lessons Learned from Registered Reports in Economics

Jul. 28, online –In a webinar hosted by the Center for Open Science (COS), Andrew Foster, Editor in Chief at the Journal of Development Economics, Irenaeus Wolff, a guest editor for Experimental Economics, and BITSS Sn. Program Associate Aleksandar Bogdanoski discussed their experiences with implementing the Registered Reports format in economics, its reception by the authors, and lessons learned since adoption. Read More →

Jun 27, 2020  –  Jun 27, 2020

BITSS Presentations on Computational Reproducibility in Economics at the Virtual 95th WEAI Annual Conference

June 27, online — BITSS hosted two virtual sessions on research reproducibility at the 95th Annual Conference of the Western Economic Association International (WEAI). The sessions presented resources and lessons learned from the Accelerating Computation Reproducibility in Economics (ACRE) project led BITSS and AEA Data Editor Lars Vilhuber. Read More →

Apr 1, 2020

Webinar: Implementing Increased Transparency and Reproducibility in Economics

Apr. 1, 2020, online — BITSS and the AEA Data Editor Lars Vilhuber hosted a short webinar to discuss recent efforts to improve transparency and reproducibility in economics, including pre-publication verification of computational reproducibility in AEA journals and the Accelerating Computational Reproducibility in Economics (ACRE) project.

Dec 13, 2019  |  Berkeley, CA

2019 BITSS Annual Meeting

BITSS held its eighth Annual Meeting on December 13, 2019, at UC Berkeley. The event brought together stakeholders from academia, scholarly publishing, and policy to share knowledge and discuss the evolving movement toward research transparency and efforts to strengthen the standards of openness and integrity in the social sciences.

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Dec 12, 2019  –  Dec 12, 2019  |  Berkeley, CA

Workshop: Unlocking the File Drawer

BITSS and the Stanford Immigration Policy Lab (IPL) hosted a one-day ideation workshop titled “Unlocking the File Drawer” at UC Berkeley on December 12. The workshop convened an interdisciplinary group of researchers, funders, journal editors, design specialists, and research administrators to explore integrating approaches to improving the tracking of funded research outputs, with special consideration for projects that yield null results.

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Dec 11, 2019  |  Berkeley, CA

Panel Discussion on Journal Reproducibility Policies and Practices

BITSS and the Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS) will host a panel on journal reproducibility policies and practices 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm on Dec. 11 at the BIDS office space at Doe Library, UC Berkeley. The panel will discuss perspectives and experiences at journals in economics, statistics, and the physical and health sciences, as well as resources to support reproducibility available to the UC Berkeley community and beyond.  Read More →

Oct 2, 2019  –  Oct 4, 2019  |  Bloomington, IN

Rigor, Reproducibility and Transparency (RRT) at the Interdisciplinary Interface

Catalyst Sean Grant represented BITSS at “Rigor, Reproducibility, and Transparency (RRT) at the Interdisciplinary Interface”, a workshop organized by the School of Public Health, at Indiana University-Bloomington on October 2-4, 2019. The workshop will include high-level discussions in small group settings and will begin identifying priorities and infrastructure needs for a coordinated and interdisciplinary set of research training activities for promoting RRT in science.

Sep 11, 2019  –  Sep 13, 2019  |  Washington, DC

Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training (RT2) – Washington, D.C.

BITSS hosted its Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training (RT2) in Washington DC, September 11-13, 2019.

RT2 provides participants with an overview of tools and best practices for transparent and reproducible social science research. The curriculum is developed and delivered by academic leaders in the open science movement and there is space for collaborative work and hands-on skill-building. Participants are encouraged to bring their own research questions and ideas to seek support and feedback from instructors and other attendees.

Read More →

Sep 10, 2019  |  Washington, DC

Transparency, Reproducibility and Credibility: A Research Symposium

“Transparency, Reproducibility, and Credibility of Economics Research” is a research symposium hosted collaboratively by the World Bank Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) group, BITSS, the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie), The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) on September 10, 2019 at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

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Jun 29, 2019  –  Jul 2, 2019  |  San Francisco, CA

BITSS at the 94th WEAI Annual Conference

BITSS will exhibit at the 94th Annual Conference of the Western Economic Association International (WEAI) in San Francsico, CA on June 28th-July 2nd, 2019. Visit us in the conference registration area to learn about our latest work in supporting research and training for transparency and reproducibility in economics.

Apr 8, 2019  –  Apr 12, 2019  |  Galway

Catalyst event: Open Science Week at NUI Galway, Ireland

Elaine Toomey and colleagues organized the NUI Galway Open Science Week on April 8-12, 2019, the first of its kind in Ireland. The event brought together researchers, academics, educators, policymakers and members of the public to highlight and showcase what open science is, and how it can be achieved. As part of the Open Science Week, the organizers also hosted “Open Science in Health Research”, a two-day introductory workshop for early career researchers on April 11-12, 2019 at the School of Psychology, National University of Ireland Galway. Learn more here.