Overview

Metascience is gaining momentum across sectors and regions, with new initiatives, investments, and collaborations emerging to improve research systems. As this movement grows, the Metascience Alliance is forming as a coalition and hub for alignment and collaboration—connecting stakeholders, coordinating shared priorities, and accelerating collective progress.

The Metascience Alliance brings together researchers, funders, institutions, publishers, policymakers, infrastructure providers, entrepreneurs, and others working to strengthen how science is conducted, evaluated, and communicated. Rather than acting as a central authority, the Alliance supports shared priorities, amplifies existing work, and creates space for collaborative reform and innovation.

What We're Building

The Metascience Alliance is currently in its formative phase, with a two-year pilot catalyzed and operationally supported by the Center for Open Science (COS). During this phase, we are working with partners to co-create the structure, priorities, and activities of the Alliance.

Together, we aim to:

Coalition building: bridging communities through convenings, networking events, and resources that support onboarding and connection across disciplines, regions, and sectors
Strengthen the workforce by supporting new career pathways, offering cross-sector training, and launching programs for postdocs and early-stage innovators
Enable matchmaking by connecting researchers, funders, infrastructure providers, and others to co-develop questions, design projects, and catalyze collaboration
Amplify and align efforts across the field to reduce duplication, surface shared goals, and encourage collective experimentation

Recent Activity

Synthesis of Input to Date
A working synthesis of input gathered so far is now available. It reflects back what we’ve heard and highlights five emerging themes guiding next steps and upcoming activities.

Perspective Sessions Pilot
A new pilot activity is underway to support focused, cross-stakeholder conversations on timely issues affecting research systems, with public-facing takeaways planned as the series develops.

Get Involved

We’re building the Alliance now and invite you to help shape it.

For organizations:

Review the Letter of Intent to learn more about joining as a founding group of the Metascience Alliance. This signals early support and a commitment to shaping its future. If interested, email metasciencealliance@cos.io prior to signing the letter.

For individuals:

Join our mailing list to stay informed and hear about opportunities to contribute as we grow.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I get involved?

There are two routes, depending on whether you're joining as an organization or as an individual.

If your organization wants to get involved, the main route is signing the Letter of Intent (see below). This gives your organization a seat at the table as a founding signatory: input into piloting and iterating on activities, and a direct line to the Alliance as it develops.

If you'd like to be involved as an individual, the best way to stay in the loop for now is our mailing list.

What does it mean to be a Letter of Intent signatory?

Signing the Letter of Intent (LoI) is the main way an organization signals support for the Alliance. It's deliberately non-binding — no financial obligation, no commitment to specific deliverables. It signals that your organization shares the Alliance's goals and wants to help build it from the start, rather than joining something already finished. Founding signatories are who we turn to as we pilot and iterate: testing ideas, giving feedback, helping us work out what's genuinely useful. It's early and informal, but real. You can find the LoI here.

Is the Alliance organizing the 2027 Metascience Conference?

No — the 2027 Metascience Conference is being organized by TOSI and COS. The Metascience Conference series is something that the Alliance could help facilitate in the future, but as of now they are distinct initiatives.

How are Alliance activities selected and developed until now?

The first activity ideas so far have come from public input: a questionnaire run last year, and a workshop at the Metascience 2025 Conference in London. You can find our synthesis of that input here. Anyone can also propose an idea directly — just get in touch!

These ideas are coordinated by Tom van Drimmelen, the Metascience Alliance Coordinator. An interim team — consisting of Tom van Drimmelen Tim Errington, and Julia Priess-Buchheit — assesses each idea against two questions: resource feasibility, expected benefit relative to the Alliance's stated goals. Activities also need to serve more than one stakeholder group rather than one alone. The interim Steering Committee is made aware of the activities, and will help shape future governance and sustainability of the activities if they continue.

How is the Alliance governed and sustained?

The Metascience Alliance is currently being supported operationally and financially by the Center for Open Science, with day-to-day coordination support by Tom van Drimmelen, and an interim Steering Committee that is a volunteer-based group that is helping propose what the future of the Metascience Alliance could be. This current approach of the Metascience Alliance is agile and light-touch by design, allowing the Alliance to quickly adapt and experiment; however, as we learn more from individuals and organizations engaged in the Metascience Alliance we anticipate this model to adapt.

How is the Alliance different from other networks?

There are related networks doing fantastic work in connecting individuals and organizations in a single geographic region or discipline, connecting members of one stakeholder group, or coalescing around specific aspects of research practice.

The Metascience Alliance is distinct and complementary to those groups by being global, cross-sector, and interdisciplinary. The Alliance supports improving the global research system with a broad, diverse engagement with all interested parties.

How does the Alliance interact with existing networks?

One guiding principle of the Metascience Alliance is to connect and coordinate with existing communities to find win-win opportunities and avoid redundancy. This includes active collaboration where appropriate.

Will the Metascience Alliance be conducting (meta)research itself?

The Metascience Alliance aims to stimulate and foster metascience research by connecting interested parties, and supporting growth and engagement. Members of the Alliance will collaborate and conduct research, but the Alliance itself is not intended to lead research.