Description
Roundtable Discussion / Participants:Lesley Alborough, Wellcome Trust;
René Bekkers, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam;
Elizabeth Bloodgood, Concordia University;
Jesse Bourns, Ajah;
Lewis Faulk, American University;
Michael Lenczner, Ajah;
Elizabeth Searing, University of Texas, Dallas;
Jurgen Willems, Vienna University of Economics and Business/WU Wien,
Public scandals in academic research (Bastian 2016; Young 2015), linked to the failure of researchers to share their data or methods and the inability of others to replicate their high profile results, have resulted in new rules and processes for sharing data and increasing transparency in research methods and procedures(Bourns 2022). This increased transparency and exchange hold the potential to advance scholarship in productive ways by encouraging collaboration, reuse and expansion of research, and preventing premature rejection (or acceptance) of important findings. Granting agencies around the world (European Union Plan S, Canadian TriCouncil Agencies, US National Science Foundation, Wellcome, UKRI, Novo Nordisk) have also increased pressure on researchers to release their data and methods by requiring that all funded research must be made public in a timely, if not immediate, fashion. Researchers working within nonprofit organizations have not faced similar pressures for improving their research practice. This creates a growing risk of repeating the same issues faced within academics, including public scandal, loss of credibility, and the drying up of funding, on top of the potential to hurt enormous numbers of people who depend on nonprofit organizations for the goods and services that they provide. Increased attention to reporting the research methods and data used by nonprofits (and foundations) in designing their programs, measuring their impacts, and funding new projects to increase replicability can also aid in scaling up and diffusing projects, as well as combining efforts across organizations to increase integration and efficiency. Broader efforts to share data and results, including open data initiatives, also increase the potential for collaboration between organizations and with funders and government agencies. The participants in this roundtable examine both the opportunities and the challenges of adopting existing research protocols and platforms for sharing research methods and data coming from academia and the best way forward to improve research integrity within nonprofit research organizations and foundations. Participants from research, health, and economic development nonprofit organizations and foundations from Canada, Germany (?), the United Kingdom, and the United States each address three key questions:
1) What are the primary issues to be addressed in how nonprofit organizations and foundations currently use empirical research to adopt, implement, and evaluate service provision programs (e.g. homelessness mitigation, health interventions, economic development programs)?
2) What should the best practices be for research replication, data sharing, and transparency in research design for nonprofits?
3) How can these best practices (or at least improvements in this direction) be realized, for example via the adoption of a platform such as the Open Science Framework, donor requirements for data release added to grants, or government regulation?
| Period | 17 Jul 2024 |
|---|---|
| Event title | 16th International ISTR Conference : Crisis After Crisis After …: What About the Third Sector? |
| Event type | Conference |
| Conference number | 16 |
| Location | Antwerp, BelgiumShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |