Ryuichi Maruyama’s Post

For the past few days I’ve been in London for the first time in my life to attend the #Metascience2025 conference. It was a diverse gathering of researchers, funders, publishers, research administrators, policy makers and others who are all interested in how to make science work better. Of course what we mean by “making science better,” or even what counts as “science,” is itself contentious. That’s exactly why we need metascience. I’ve been following this movement for about three years now. I attended Metascience 2023 in Washington, D.C. and since then decided to take on the role of “metascience communicator” in Japan—my aim is to mediate metascientific discourse within the research community and beyond. https://lnkd.in/dxuwXjwC So how was Metascience 2025? It was great. The event has nearly tripled in size since 2023, and it gave a strong impression that metascience is moving into the mainstream of science policymaking, especially in the UK. The UK’s Minister for Science and Technology opened the conference as the plenary speaker, spoke about the importance of metascience, the experimental approaches to funding and evaluating science, and how the UK is investing in it. The rest of the three-day program was vibrant and I enjoyed it very much. On the other hand, as metascience becomes more mainstream, the conference felt a bit more down-to-earth than before. One of the things I value most about metascience is its entrepreneurial, out-of-the-box ideas for doing science in radically different ways, as described in Qiu & Nielsen’s 2022 essay “A Vision of Metascience.” I sensed a slight shift in the movement’s center of gravity—see my tentative map below. I also hoped for more discussion on how AI could transform science, not just incremental adoption but truly radical change, something Shiro Takagi (who also came to London) and I have been exploring. https://lnkd.in/gt8gAqM8 All that said, the three-day conference was incredibly stimulating, and I can’t thank the organizers enough. It’s given me renewed energy to continue my (albeit part-time/side-hustle) work in metascience communication in Japan. I’m excited to see what’s next!