This 1-hour webinar will be an opportunity to hear about the methodology and first results of the iRISE consortium. iRISE is working towards a better understanding of reproducibility and the interventions that work to improve it. At the end of the presentation there will also be the opportunity to ask questions.

The iRISE (improving Reproducibility In SciencE) project aims to deepen our understanding of the drivers contributing to poor reproducibility and to conduct a detailed evaluation – including primary research – of the effectiveness of interventions to increase reproducibility. The project's work package (WP) on theory is dedicated to clarifying terms and underlying concepts related to reproducibility. To ensure efficient communication within the iRISE consortium, we produced a glossary with working definitions of terms including reproducibility, replicability, and replication. A concept important in pre-clinical drug discovery, translatability, was for example defined as "the ability to apply research discoveries from experimental models to applications that directly benefit humans". The definitions are complemented with measures to quantify different types of reproducibility, and theories on the possible factors leading to irreproducibility. The core WP of the project is focused on intervention testing. Various intervention studies are currently being conducted and the interventions' efficiency in improving the reproducibility of science is being assessed. The tested interventions target various research stakeholders and phases of the research process.

How is all of this of interest to pre-clinical drug discovery? And why does the EU fund such initiatives and projects? This contribution will present iRISE's methodology and first results towards a better understanding of reproducibility and the interventions that work to improve it.