Stephanie Meirmans’s research while affiliated with University of Amsterdam and other places

While the subject of much speculation, most quantitative assessments of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on scientific productivity (i) are based on self-reported survey data, (ii) cover only a short period of time, (iii) may be biased by an increase in COVID-19-based research, (iv) cover a limited range of publishers or publishing outlets, and/or (v) cannot distinguish between changes in submission versus acceptance rates. Here we analyse submission and acceptance data from 2012 to 2023 for 25 journals in ecology and evolution, a field that has produced relatively few COVID-19-related articles. We show that although submission rates spiked when the pandemic began, they have been plummeting since. While there is variation in these patterns among countries and journals, the latter is unrelated to journal impact factor. The absence of a coinciding change in acceptance rates suggests that journals have not changed their quality standards to buffer these trends in productivity. Together, this demonstrates dynamic but long-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on scientific productivity, suggestive of fundamental changes to scientific practice and communication. A profitable direction for future research would be to build upon our results by targeting topic-, method- and system-related variation in productivity within and across journals.

Drawing on our experiences conducting replications we describe the lessons we learned about replication studies and formulate recommendations for researchers, policy makers, and funders about the role of replication in science and how it should be supported and funded. We first identify a variety of benefits of doing replication studies. Next, we argue that it is often necessary to improve aspects of the original study, even if that means deviating from the original protocol. Thirdly, we argue that replication studies highlight the importance of and need for more transparency of the research process, but also make clear how difficult that is. Fourthly, we underline that it is worth trying out replication in the humanities. We finish by formulating recommendations regarding reproduction and replication research, aimed specifically at funders, editors and publishers, and universities and other research institutes.

In the research integrity literature, funding plays two different roles: it is thought to elevate questionable research practices (QRPs) due to perverse incentives, and it is a potential actor to incentivize research integrity standards. Recent studies, asking funders, have emphasized the importance of the latter. However, the perspective of active researchers on the impact of competitive research funding on science has not been explored yet. Here, I address this issue by conducting a series of group sessions with researchers in two different countries with different degrees of competition for funding, from three scientific fields (medical sciences, natural sciences, humanities), and in two different career stages (permanent versus temporary employment). Researchers across all groups experienced that competition for funding shapes science, with many unintended negative consequences. Intriguingly, these consequences had little to do with the type of QRPs typically being presented in the research integrity literature. Instead, the researchers pointed out that funding could result in predictable, fashionable, short-sighted, and overpromising science. This was seen as highly problematic: scientists experienced that the ‘projectification’ of science makes it more and more difficult to do any science of real importance: plunging into the unknown or addressing big issues that need a long-term horizon to mature. They also problematized unintended negative effects from collaboration and strategizing. I suggest it may be time to move away from a focus on QRPs in connection with funding, and rather address the real problems. Such a shift may then call for entirely different types of policy actions.

Drawing on our experiences conducting replications we describe the lessons we learnt about replication studies and formulate recommendations for researchers, policy makers, and funders about the role of replication in science and how it should be supported and funded. We first identify a variety of benefits of doing replication studies. Next, we argue that it is often necessary to improve aspects of the original study, even if that means deviating from the original protocol. Thirdly, we argue that replication studies highlight the importance of and need for more transparency of the research process, but also make clear how difficult that is. Fourthly, we underline that it is worth trying out replication in the humanities, although it is oftenargued that replication has no place there. We finish by formulating recommendations regarding reproduction and replication research, aimed specifically at funders, editors and publishers, and universities and other research institutes.

Many fewer women than men hold senior academic positions, a widely recognized and increasing problem. Our goal is to identify effective and feasible solutions. We begin by providing an in-depth assessment of the drivers of this gender inequity. In our synthesis of existing data, we provide many lines of evidence highlighting caregiving as a primary main factor. This is not a ‘new’ insight per se, but a point worth repeating that we back up by a strong and synthetic body of recent data. We also believe that our analysis provides a step forward in tackling a complex issue. We then develop a more detailed understanding of the challenges academic caregivers face and discuss whether and why it is important to keep caregivers in science. We find that the attrition due to caregiving should not be seen as a factor but rather as a process with multiple ‘sticky steps’ that eventually drive caregivers out of science—which, as we argue, is partly also good news. Indeed, it is here that we believe actions could be taken that would have a real impact: for example, one could effectively increase and expand upon current funding practices that focus on caregiver career advancement.

Policy makers push for consortia science geared towards addressing important issues. Such consortia are expected to target societal problems, be international, to engage in trans- or interdisciplinary research, to involve stakeholders and have specific plans for implementation. For example, Horizon Europe focuses on five missions that are being targeted by such type of consortia. This, however, does not seem to be the type of funding that active researchers appreciate the most: a recent letter signed by over 24.000 researchers clearly shows their preference for ERC grants. What are the underlying reasons for this difference? Here, we share insights on how natural science and medical researchers experience the impact of these funding schemes using interviews. Our findings highlight that the two different types of funding schemes have a different performative effect on research, and that ERC-type funding aligns most with how scientists think research should best be conducted.

In the research integrity literature, funding enters in two different ways: as elevating questionable research practices due to perverse incentives, and as being a potential player to incentivize researchers to behave well. Other recent studies have emphasized the importance of the latter, asking funding experts. Here, I explored how the impact of competitive research funding on science is being perceived by active researchers. More specifically, I have conducted a series of group sessions with researchers in two different countries with a different degree of competition for funding, in three disciplinary fields (medical sciences, natural sciences and the humanities), and with researchers in two different career stages (permanent versus temporary employment). Researchers across all groups experienced that competition for funding shapes science, with many unintended questionable side effects. Intriguingly, these questionable effects had little to do with the type of questionable research practices (QRP's) typically being presented in the research integrity literature. While the notion of QRP's focuses on publications and assumes that there would essentially be a correct way to do the science, researchers worried about the shaping of science via funding. According to my session participants, rather than ending up as really being wrong, this shaping could result in predictable, fashionable, short-sighted, and overpromising science. And still, this was seen as highly problematic: scientists experienced that the projectification of science makes it more and more difficult to do any science of real importance: plunging into the unknown or addressing big issues that would need a long-term horizon to mature.

Sexual reproduction is widespread amongst higher eukaryotes. But why are there not many more organisms reproducing asexually? After all, an asexual organism avoids making males, can thus in theory reproduce more efficiently, and one asexual mutant should quickly lead to the extinction of a sexual source population. Owing to such arguments, understanding the evolution and maintenance of sexual reproduction has in 1982 been called ‘the queen of problems in evolutionary biology’. In the last four decades, we have gained tremendous insights into this issue: perhaps most importantly, we understand more clearly that the powerful arguments against sex are not fully realised in all species. There are also recent insights into understanding the maintenance of sex in species where the problem is (partially) realised. Experimental evolution studies show that outcrossing can speed up the response to selection, while studies on natural populations emphasise the importance of niche differentiation and parasites. Key Concepts Sexual organisms dominate amongst higher eukaryotes. Sexuals should in theory suffer from severe costs of sex, such as the cost of males. All else equal, sexual populations should quickly go extinct due to these costs of sex. On the genetic level, sexuality leads to fixed combinations of alleles across loci – also known as linkage disequilibrium (LD) – whereas sexual reproduction tends to break down these combinations to make sure that all combinations are possible, causing the population to be in a state of linkage equilibrium. Since the breakdown of linkage disequilibrium is the most striking genetic effect of sexual reproduction, this has been the focus of most of the proposed benefits for sex. In many species, the costs of sex might not be realised; the exact costs are affected by species‐specific constraints on the evolution of asexuality as well as ecological differentiation between sexuals and asexuals and life‐history traits.