The Challenge

It has been argued that, in the modern era, knowledge is fragmented in a manner that makes it difficult for different scientists to communicate and speak a common language. At the same time, concerns have been raised that science is going through a so-called ‘credibility crisis’, casting doubt on whether existing scientific structures and incentives are optimal for society. Stemming from several disciplines, concrete proposals for reform have emerged to increase what is called ‘reproducibility’: the ability of independent scientists to obtain similar results when they try to reproduce previous findings.

This presents a unique challenge and opportunity for economics and social sciences to study the problem of incentives and institutional reforms in science using their unique tools of analysis. There has never been a time more opportune for the field of Science and Innovation Policy and Studies (SIPS) to produce scientific insights for the benefit of society.

This challenge is also apparent for the area of Cyprus: a small but innovative nation, with a young and excellent university, University of Cyprus (UCY) is uniquely suited to foster this endeavor as part of the European Research Area. Optimal exploitation of the existing research capacity and infrastructures of UCY can render Cyprus a leading research player in the agenda for the study of scientific institutions. A key economic tool for the study of science is game theory, combined with validation in the lab and observational studies. The status of UCY as the oldest and strongest university in Cyprus, combined with an outstanding group of young researchers in microeconomic theory and experiments, based at the Economics Department, make UCY uniquely suited for this role.

SInnoPSis and its Mission

SInnoPSis is a European Research Area chair with principal thematic focus on Science and Innovation Policy and Studies. This includes fields such as Economics, Social Sciences, Philosophy, Information Technology and Biomedicine. The Chair will conduct a research and innovation program including multidisciplinary research output and innovative educational and training programs. In the medium term, SInnoPSis will work towards the establishment of a multidisciplinary research unit which will allow for permanent exploitation of synergies at UCY, and for the sustainable advancement of the relevant research agenda.

The SInnoPSis project will interact with key stakeholders interested in assessing research and innovation practices, both at the national and international level. These will include EU Joint Research Centers focusing on Research & Innovation, the newly established National Council of Research and Innovation of Cyprus, the Ministry of Education and Culture, the National Academy for Sciences, Arts and Letters, and Research and Innovation Foundation.

In particular, the new Office of the Chief Scientist is aimed at undertaking the chief executive role in designing and implementing R&I policy in Cyprus – with the National Council of Research and Innovation acting as an advisory body. The activities of the ERA Chair will have the potential to inform the Chief Scientist and the National Council of Research and Innovation of Cyprus in significant issues related to SIPS and implementing science and innovation policies in Cyprus with emphasis on the Research Promotion Foundation, which will publish calls on competitive R&I funding.

Our Vision

The organization of the SInnoPSis team and its actions will be informed by our general vision about Economics of Science and its place in understanding the challenges facing science today.

First, we believe that science should utilize complementary approaches in a truly interdisciplinary manner to understand its own processes. Many disciplines are affected by similar forces that shape the scientific environment and incentives. Hence, it is only natural that they all contribute – according to each discipline’s relative advantage – to our understanding of what drives these forces and what should change.

Second, we argue that economics methods should be an integral part of the modern discipline of meta-research (‘’studying the processes and decisions that shape the evolution of scientific research’’). This is because they provide the tools and methods to study incentives and institutions.

Finally, we envision a future where research institutions, such as research funders and universities, systematically use science to rigorously assess and reconsider their own research practices.

Meta-Research and Social Sciences

Meta-research is the newly-emerging scientific discipline of studying the incentives, processes and institutions that characterize the scientific production of knowledge itself. This article discusses what this discipline does and its scope for science. It is worth quoting a key phrase: “A research effort is needed that cuts across all disciplines, drawing from a wide range of methodologies and theoretical frameworks, and yet shares a common objective; that of helping science progress faster by conducting scientific research on research itself. This is the field of meta-research. ”

The special characteristic of this meta-research is its interdisciplinarity. Interaction among research fields is key for sharing of tools and approaches that help us understand these aspects. By its nature, the problem of how best to organize the production of scientific knowledge interests scientists from many disciplines. A key focus of our work in the ERA Chair in Science and Innovation Policy and Studies is on the input of social and behavioral sciences in this effort. This includes primarily economics, but also management, psychology and other social disciplines.

The cross-fertilization between economic sciences and meta-research takes two main directions. This article discusses these possible directions. One direction is from established practices in meta-research in inspiring and informing social sciences (especially economics). For instance, research synthesis techniques have a great development in biomedicine and psychology, but not in economics and political science. On the other hand, economics has very mature tools to analyze incentives in science, which can contribute to the common goal of assessing reforms in scientific institutions and practices.

Methodological Contributions of Economics

Institutional reforms work by altering incentives. What economics, in particular, can bring to the table is its rigorous methodology in studying incentives and social interactions of agents that act strategically. Very often, these social interactions have unintended consequences at the systemic level. Economic mathematical modelling can help us capture and understand such consequences.

Game theory uses mathematical representations to understand how interactions among different individuals shape economic and social outcomes. For this reason, it is particularly useful for studying the behavior of researchers, often competing with each other for discovering novel effects and for scientific prestige.

Experimental Economics tests theories of social and economic behavior scientifically and it may also be used to examine the effects of different policies. It is therefore particularly useful for serving as a ‘wind tunnel’ for testing the potential effects of different scientific policies and interventions.

Open Science and Reproducibility

This era of unlimited computational capacity brings opportunities and some challenges for the advancement of scientific knowledge. On the one hand, the ability to conduct calculations at a great scale allows for an unprecedented level of application of scientific principles. At the other hand, it bears the risk of making traditional statistical inference meaningless. The concept of ‘scientific discovery’ becomes more difficult to interpret in an environment with extremely low cost of statistical experimentation.

Employing meta-analytic techniques to separate wheat from chaff, using Bayesian techniques and redefining statistical significance have been suggested as ways of addressing this challenge. However, maybe the most promising avenue ahead is to be transparent ex ante about the main research hypotheses and the statistical methods that are to be used.

Fortunately, technological developments allow for costless sharing of research methods and tools. As this type of discussions mature, tools for sharing material, analysis and coding with the research community will become more popular, and perhaps even part of the technical arsenal to be mastered in the post-graduate curriculum.

Whether these tools and methods will be promptly fostered by the scientific community will depend on the rearrangement of scientists’ incentives. Economic theory teaches us that these incentives will have to be structured in such a manner that strategic researchers who wish to advance their careers will choose to use these tools and methods to achieve their objectives. There is great scope for delving deeper into this insight using economic research tools.