June 2026 – 3rd MERRI Newsletter
Welcome to the third issue of the MERRI Community Newsletter
From the editors
Welcome to the MERRI community, a collective of researchers with a shared interest in and passion for rigour and reproducibility, evidence synthesis, and related topics. Many of us come from the TIER2, iRISE, and OSIRIS projects, but we welcome any researchers or research staff of any discipline or career stage who share our values. The topic we would like to open this issue with is the intersection of AI, reproducibility, and metascience, as well as the opportunities and responsibilities that arise. AI is rapidly becoming part of researchers’ everyday toolkit, supporting literature reviews, data analysis or scientific writing. For metascience communities like MERRI, these tools and their use provide new examples to study and improve research systems, while also raising important questions about the reliability of the evidence they produce. Metascience has long relied on large-scale data to understand how science operates. AI now enables analysis at unprecedented scale, revealing patterns across millions of publications, collaborations, and funding decisions. Such capabilities can strengthen the evidence base for initiatives like MERRI and help identify factors that support more robust and efficient research practices. At the same time, AI poses challenges for reproducibility. Models are often trained on imperfect data and can generate results that are difficult to verify, replicate, or interpret. If AI-driven analyses are not transparent and reproducible, then they provide risk, amplifying biases and introducing new sources of uncertainty into the scientific record. For this reason, reproducibility must remain a central concern as AI becomes more deeply integrated into research and metascience. Transparent methods, accessible data, and careful validation are essential if AI-generated insights are to support meaningful improvements in research systems. AI may become one of the most powerful tools available to metascience. Its value, however, will depend on whether we use it not only efficiently, but also responsibly, transparently, and reproducibly. So, considering possible forthcoming project applications following research questions and challenges emerge: How can we interpret the reproducibility of the answers (and conclusions) of AI? At a first look, we can say that problem solving of AI is reproducible if all of the resources it used are reproducible. Accordingly, we must ask whether AI is prepared (moreover can be prepared) for the systematic checking/tracing of the reproducibility of each underlying resource?
If you have further comments and thoughts about this topic, we encourage you to respond to this email. Also, other ideas or suggestions regarding forthcoming newsletter issues are welcome, feel free to submit content to cover in our next edition!
See you tomorrow (June 9, 2026) at our monthly meeting!
Recent highlights from the field
A new consensus paper from WP3 of the OSIRIS consortium has just been published!
A multidisciplinary international panel of experts has developed a consensus-based set of core reproducibility items intended to strengthen transparency and reliability across the entire research lifecycle. Published in PLOS Biology, the framework outlines minimum expectations for study planning, methodology, data collection and management, analysis, and dissemination. By providing a practical checklist applicable across disciplines, the authors aim to support researchers, reviewers, funders, and institutions in embedding reproducibility into everyday research practice and reducing research waste. The initiative represents an important step toward establishing shared standards for more trustworthy and reusable science.
Read the whole paper here: https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3003726
Opportunities
GRIOS Call for proposals is now open – The Global Research Initiative on Open Science (GRIOS) has launched its first open call for evidence synthesis proposals on Open Science. The call focuses on two key topics (research assessment and incentives, and research data sharing) and will fund one review per topic with up to €80,000. Applications are open until 20 July 2026.
More info: https://www.grios.org/grios-launches-open-call-for-evidence-synthesis-on-open-science/
EPICUR Seed Fund is open – for the attention of alliance members – EPICUR (European Partnership for Innovative Campus Unifying Regions) is a European higher education alliance supported by the European Union. A recently opened new funding scheme aims to enable researchers to initiate research collaborations, explore innovative ideas, prepare applications for external funding and develop joint teaching activities. As the topic is open, it offers a good opportunity for participating organizations to establish new collaborations in the field of metascience. The application deadline is 15 September 2026.
More info: https://epicur.edu.eu/epicur-seed-funding-2026-the-call-is-now-open/
Events (upcoming)
2026 Nordic-RSE Conference, June 9-10. 2026, Tromsø – Although registration has closed, it looks like an interesting event. The Nordic-RSE Conference 2026 will bring together researchers and research software engineers to discuss reproducible science, open-source tools, and sustainable research software practices. The event highlights the growing role of software and infrastructure in transparent and reproducible research.
More info: https://nordic-rse.org/nrse2026/
Meta-Science Summer School 2026: Designing and Conducting Studies To Improve Research – The Meta-Science Summer School, taking place from 23–28 August, offers a unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience in designing and conducting studies that address research transparency, reproducibility, and quality. Participants will collaborate in small teams with leading experts and may continue their projects beyond the summer school toward publication.
LMU Open Science Summer School 2026 – Applications are now open for the LMU Open Science Summer School 2026, a hybrid program taking place in Munich and online from 7 - 15 September 2026. The summer school offers hands-on training in open and reproducible research practices, including preregistration, FAIR data management, and computational reproducibility, as well as a dedicated instructor-training track for participants interested in teaching Open Science. The application deadline for workshop participation is 6 July 2026.
More info: https://lmu-osc.github.io/Open-Science-Summer-School-2026/join.html
Fellowship of the Data – International RDM Community Meeting 2026, 21-22 September 2026 in Vienna – Applications are open for the Data Fellows Program at the University of Vienna, an interdisciplinary training initiative that equips researchers with practical skills in research data management, FAIR principles and open science. Through workshops, mentoring, and peer exchange, participants learn how to improve the quality, transparency, and reusability of research data within their own disciplines. The application deadline is 30 June 2026.
More info: https://datafellows.univie.ac.at/
Fun fact / Joke
If Reviewer 2 were a measurable research variable, it would likely be classified as an unpredictable confounder 😕.
An invitation
If you would like to:
- write to us with questions about science that you can’t stop thinking about,
- share ideas about ideas that feel promising, under-examined, or conversely, overhyped,
- share info about relevant events, publications, etc. for us to share in our next newsletter…
feel free to contact us (Monika Varga, varga.monika@uni-mate.hu, Fiona Ramage, fiona.ramage@univ-rennes.fr) or to respond to this email directly!