engleski

Estimating the unused potential of ecological research

In recent years, the research community has become aware of many problems that affect the stages of the research life-cycle. These include suboptimal study design, publication bias, and suboptimal reporting of results. This thesis aims to quantify the unused potential of ecological research that stems from inefficiencies in various components of the “classical” research process (from funded study to published results). The amount of waste that occurs at different stages of the research life-cycle was quantified based on published estimates of the extent of these issues in the broad field of ecology using a systematic literature review. Finally, based on data extracted from 40 relevant papers, the overall unused potential of ecological research was estimated, to be quite high, between 75.4 % and 88.7%. The presented estimates call for an urgent action to reduce the loss of potential knowledge. This can be best done by changes in scientific incentives, better training, and by transitioning to a more transparent and reproducible research.

research life-cycle ; publication bias ; research waste ; urgent actions ; ecology

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