BITSS began almost four years ago as a small, but strong grassroots movement to change how social science is conducted to be more transparent and reproducible. After years of events, trainings, and publications, BITSS launched its Catalyst Program last November to harness its growing, grassroots network of social scientists dedicated to changing the norms of research practice.
After an initial pilot phase (described in more detail in our Concept Note), 26 Catalysts from 19 institutions have been recruited. Over the last six months, Catalysts have developed and delivered training events through workshops in South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Now in Phase II, Catalysts will have access to additional financial resources to scale-up their efforts to train and educate the current and next generations of social scientists on how to practice transparent, reproducible research. The Call for Projects was launched today, with $75,000 available for domestic and international projects – such as workshops, boot-camps, institutes, and conferences, as well as the development of university-level coursework. These efforts will fuel a growing movement of researchers and practitioners dedicated to enabling open and robust science.
The Catalyst Program complements other BITSS efforts to drive change in social science research. These efforts include Research Transparency and Reproducibility Trainings (RT2) that will scale up and institutionalize BITSS’s Summer Institutes, as well as the Social Science Meta-Analysis and Research Transparency (SSMART) grants that fund rigorous studies to improve understanding of research practices in the social sciences. BITSS also rewards best practices in research transparency with the Leamer-Rosenthal Prizes for Open Social Science.
Our goal is to reach 100 active Catalysts by June 2018. Interested in becoming one? Reach out to Senior Program Associate Katie Hoeberling at khoeberling@berkeley.edu.