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AFIRE - RoRI's Accelerator For Innovation & Research Funding Experimentation

Tom Stafford, AFIRE programme lead

22 May 2024

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These slides:

bit.ly/tomstafford

AFIRE - Accelerator For Innovation & Research Funding Experimentation

t.stafford@sheffield.ac.uk

https://researchonresearch.org/project/a-f-i-r-e/

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Aims, to enhance…

  1. Awareness
  2. Motivation
  3. Capacity
  4. Scale and reach
  5. The culture

These slides:

bit.ly/tomstafford

https://researchonresearch.org/project/a-f-i-r-e/

https://researchonresearch.org/project/a-f-i-r-e/

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Forum

Support

Experiments!

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These slides:

bit.ly/tomstafford

Forum

Launch Keynotes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DColipQFEo

Stian Westlake, Executive Chair, ESRC (part of UK Research and Innovation) outlined ambitions for the UK government’s Metascience Unit and linked £5 million UKRI and Open Philanthropy funding call;

Hanna Denecke, Head of Funding Team “Exploration” at the Volkswagen Foundation, described their latest experiment with distributed peer review;

Caleb Watney, Co-founder and Co-CEO of the Institute for Progress in Washington DC, previewed a new wave of metascience experiments at the US National Science Foundation.

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These slides:

bit.ly/tomstafford

Bendiscioli et al. (2022):

The experimental research funder’s handbook (Revised edition, June 2022, ISBN 978-1-7397102-0-0).

https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.19459328.v2

Support

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“Experiments”

trying something new

formal evaluation

rigorous inference

explicit research question(s)

defined target measure(s)

preregistered analysis plan

open reporting

causal inference

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Experiments!

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These slides:

bit.ly/tomstafford

AFIRE - Accelerator For Innovation & Research Funding Experimentation

t.stafford@sheffield.ac.uk

https://researchonresearch.org/project/a-f-i-r-e/

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(Reserve slides follow, not for display)

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Distributed Peer Review Experiment

Current status:

- reviews underway

- applications numbers up

- applicant attitudes positive about DPR (see graphs)

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