"We Are Metascience": Conference Partners Enable a Momentous Metascience 2025

The global metaresearch community marked a significant milestone last month with Metascience 2025, the fourth event in the Metascience biennial conference series presented by the Research on Research Institute (RORI) and the Center for Open Science (COS). The event, hosted by RoRI at University College London on June 30-July 2, welcomed more than 800 participants from 65 countries and dozens of different research fields. Beyond an increase in attendance of more than 150% over Metascience 2023, this year’s iteration featured expanded program content with multiple tracks, unconference sessions, and a series of free, virtual pre-conference symposia held on Zoom in the two weeks leading up to the conference. Recordings of the pre-conference symposia are now available to view online.

This year’s conference sponsors included public science funding agencies, private philanthropies, and corporate partners, whose support enabled all components of the event, including travel and accommodation stipends for early-career researchers and others for whom attendance would otherwise have presented a serious obstacle. As with previous Metascience events, sponsors helped organizers to deliver an excellent delegate experience. A majority of this year’s attendees reported being either satisfied or highly satisfied with the event, and 4 out of 5 described themselves as likely to use knowledge obtained at the conference in their work.

One attendee stated they found the event programming was “really inclusive as someone who is stepping into metascience and made me feel like I was absolutely in the right place and welcome in the community.” Likewise, another shared “[m]y personal highlight of the conference was engaging with fellow researchers and industry professionals during the networking sessions, which led to valuable connections and potential collaborations.”

Among the many highlights of the 2025 meeting was the launch of the Metascience Alliance, a new, formalized effort to continue building community, advancing metaresearch activity, and creating career pathways for metascientists globally. This coalition and hub for collaboration brings together researchers, funders, institutions, publishers, policymakers, infrastructure providers, entrepreneurs, and others working to strengthen how science is conducted, evaluated, and communicated. The Alliance currently receives operational support from COS and is working toward long-term self-sufficiency following its initial incubation period.

Marin Dacos, the French National Open Science Coordinator and founder of the GRIOS project, shared, "As a new initiative dedicated to advancing open science through research on research, GRIOS was proud to sponsor Metascience 2025. The event provided an invaluable platform for our first engagement with the broader metascience community, allowing us to share our vision, connect with fellow funders, and join the founding group of the Metascience Alliance. Supporting such a successful gathering not only helped us grow the visibility of our work, but also to foster collaborations that will help advance metascience for better open science.”

Thanks in large part to the support of our partners, Metascience 2025 helped to further strengthen the foundation for a thriving global metascience ecosystem. As the movement continues to grow, so too does its capacity to shape a more transparent, collaborative, and inclusive research culture.