Distinguished Lecture Series: Brian Nosek and "Addressing a Dysfunctional Research Culture with Incentives, Norms, and Machines"

Addressing a Dysfunctional Research Culture with Incentives, Norms, and Machines

Improving rigor and reproducibility in research is less a technical challenge and more a social challenge. Current practice is sustained by dysfunctional incentives that prioritize publication over accuracy and transparency. The consequence is unnecessary friction in research progress. Successful reform requires coordinated changes to the incentives and social norms for good practice, and innovation in tools to identify and address error and uncertainty. 

Brian Nosek co-developed the Implicit Association Test, a method that advanced research and public interest in implicit bias. Nosek co-founded three nonprofit organizations: Project Implicit to advance research and education about implicit bias, the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science to improve the research culture in his home discipline, and the Center for Open Science (COS) to improve rigor, transparency, integrity, and reproducibility across research disciplines. Nosek is Executive Director of COS and a professor at the University of Virginia. Nosek’s research and applied interests are to understand why people and systems produce behaviors that are contrary to intentions and values; to develop, implement, and evaluate solutions to align practices with values; and, to improve research credibility and cultures to accelerate progress.