Feb 15, 2018 | Kigali

Research Transparency and Evidence Workshop — Catalyst Workshop, Kigali, Rwanda

Catalyst Mercyline Kamande held the second in a series of Research Transparency and Evidence workshops in Kigali, Rwanda hosted by the College of Business and Economics, University of Rwanda, and in partnership with EPRN and UR-Sweden Program.

The workshop included a talk from an M&E expert on the importance of credible evidence for monitoring and evaluation. From a practitioner’s perspective, data analysis that informs decision making is paramount for improving programs to address the local needs.

There was also a discussion around ethical issues associated with researcher degrees of freedom including data mining, p-hacking, HARKing, and publication bias. This was very useful in bringing to light the need to commit research designs in the form of pre-analysis plans.

Pre-registration of PAPs is not only essential to address the above problems but it also has the potential benefit of making work easily published, increasing citations, and, most importantly, making evidence more accessible and usable by policymakers.

This workshop is part of a Catalyst Training Project “Knowledge Sharing on Best Practices in Research Transparency and Reproducibility to Address the File Drawer Problem and Publication Bias in Rwanda.”