ECR Metascientist Happy Hour – A Global Gathering
In this personal reflection, Tom Stafford – one of our Institutional Leads – shares insights from a UKRN-hosted satellite event he organised for Early Career Researchers, held on the eve of the Metascience2025 conference.
A sultry Sunday night in London, and over 800 people are about to convene for the Metascience 2025 conference – the Glastonbury of Metascience – starting on Monday and lasting three days. Before tomorrow’s start, over 70 delegates, from five continents, have registered for a UKRN hosted event – the ECR Metascientist Happy Hour. It’s a chance for early career metascientists who might be attending their first Metascience conference, starting or finishing a Phd or Postdoc project in metascience, to meet to discuss research and how to navigate a career in the blossoming area of metascience. We’re in the Marquis Cornwallis, a pub in Bloomsbury with an upstairs room and much appreciated air conditioning.
What is Metascience?
Metascience as a field draws from different disciplines. Some, like philosophy of science or science and technology studies (STS) are long established. Others are rather newer. There’s a strong overlap with the open research and reproducibility agendas which UKRN members will be familiar with, which makes sense – if you want to improve credibility of research, then it makes sense to ask exactly how (un)reliable research currently is, and what the evidence says about how it might best be improved. As soon as you do that you’re doing metascience.
One issue which preoccupies early career metascientists is the possibility of careers in metascience. This year’s conference has over 3 times as many attendees than the last Metascience conference. Recent years have seen the establishment of the first national government metascience unit (in the UK), and national grant calls for metascience projects (in Canada, UK and elsewhere). There certainly seems to be a “metascience moment” happening, but is it possible to follow a career as a metascientist?
My view, at the start of the evening, was that thinking of yourself as a metascientist first, or only, is a risky strategy. There are no departments of metascience like there are departments of psychology, economics, or philosophy. Metascience may be fashionable, but open-ended contracts are given to researchers by departments, not by projects. Following this logic, it is better to be a psychologist, or an economist, or a philosopher, with a specialism in metascience, than a metascientist pure and simple. That means publishing in the venues your home discipline recognises, being clear what traditional topics in that discipline you can teach and collaborating within your discipline. All of these can be informed by the energy and interdisciplinarity of metascience.
But that is just my view. I noticed, among the many Early Career Researchers at the event, there were also a few that stood out as established researchers. It was not clear whether they had arrived by accident, or because of a desire to mentor ECR colleagues, or because UKRN was buying the drinks. Regardless, I decided to impose a “fee” on them by interrogating them on “How to make a career in metascience“.
How to make a career in Metascience: Advice from Experts
First, I accosted Fiona Fidler – Professor in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne. What is her advice for early career metascientists? She told me that STS and philosophy departments can be homes for those who defect from their primary disciplines, for those whose curiosity drives them to step back from (or rise above) the traditional work of their disciplines to focus instead on fundamental issues of how the discipline is organised.
Tim Errington, Senior Director of Research at the Center for Open Science and one of the thinkers behind the new Metascience Alliance, was standing with Prof Fielder, so I roped him into my impromtu career workshop. What was his perspective? “Take risks”, Tim told me. “Metascience is not just an interdisciplinary field, but a transdisciplinary one. There are academic researchers, industry researchers, policy people, start-up people at the conference. Look out from your own discipline”, said Tim, “look far out, beyond the discipline and beyond academic research and take risks”. This fits with the idea of the “metascience entrepreneur” that I’d heard from some of the more Silicon Valley connected parts of the metascience system. “But Tim”, I said, “what about survivor bias? We hear from people who take risks and it works out, but people who leave the comfort of a traditional research career and don’t make it work aren’t at the conference.” “I got some great advice from my PhD supervisor,” said Tim, ” which is to take risks but keep an eye on the clock” This means to know that you can be out of academic research track for 1 or 2 years, maybe 3, but if you want to go back the window will close (or at least will get harder and harder).
Finally I identified as a target James Wilsdon, Director of the Research on Research Institute, and our host for the Metascience 2025 conference. With a background in science policy and a global network of metascience contacts, James seemed an ideal candidate for my question. What was his career advice for early career metascientists? “You don’t have to be a metascience to do metascience”, he said. “It isn’t helpful or accurate to push metascience to become a discipline – metascience draws energy from lots of different disciplines.”
At the close of the night, I’m left mulling over these conversations, and dozens of others with ECRs for whom the question of career choices is very real. On reflection, I think my starting assumption holds – while jobs are given by traditional disciplines it will be difficult to get a job purely as a metascientist (although there may be an increasing number of such jobs, there aren’t enough to meet the evident interest). Better, instead, to hold a disciplinary identity and draw ideas, collaborations and energy from the metascience community. But to add to my starting beliefs, I took from Fiona Fidler that for some it will be right to move discipline. From Tim Errington I took that a well timed early career risk can pay off, and maybe this is particularly so in an international, interdisciplinary and blooming field like metascience. And from James Wilsdon I took that not only should you probably not primarily picture yourself as a metascientist, but maybe it is okay not to do that. It’s a sentiment he underscored at the opening remarks for the conference the following morning: “Metascience is not a discipline but an orientation” For most of us, said James, it will remain a side hustle.” And maybe that is okay.
Judging from the night, and the conference over the following few days, Metascience is incredibly rich and vibrant. It’s an exciting area to work in, and can certainly support interesting careers for those who can navigate the challenges.
Get Involved in the Metascience Community
If you are interested in Metascience, whether as an early career or established researcher you can get involved in the UKRN special interest group in metascience by contacting the chair, Etienne Rosch, and you can join the unaffiliated international mailing list for all things metascience and metaresearch METASERV. Early Career Researchers may also be interested in following the Platform for Young Metascientists (PYMS), a growing community which organises events and offer support for like-minded researchers.
The organisers of the ECR Metascience Happy Hour were Becky Ioppolo, Noam Tal-Perry and Tom Stafford. We wish to thank the UKRN for supporting the event and Amanda Kvarven at The Research on Research Institute and of the Metascience 2025 organising committee.
Feature image credit: Pixabay