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Content archived on 2024-06-18

Quantifying Objectivity in the Natural and Social Sciences

Objective

Every year, over 1.4 million scientific articles are published worldwide. How many of them are objective and unbiased descriptions of real phenomena? Increasing evidence suggests that malpractice and publication bias are seriously affecting modern research. Their effects, combined with biased science communication, are potentially distorting scientific knowledge to an unprecedented degree. Research agendas and political agendas risk being misdirected, and human and financial resources risk being wasted on scientific questions that are based on false assumptions. The nature and gravity of this phenomenon, as well as its consequences, are only starting to be investigated. The project aims at assessing the level of bias in the natural and social sciences by focusing on three fundamental phases in the production of scientific knowledge: data collection, publication, and popularization of results. With interviews and a survey sent to thousands of European researchers in all scientific fields (astronomy, biology, chemistry, earth science, physics, sociology, economics, political science), the project will investigate research malpractice (e.g. data falsification, fabrication, plagiarism) in Europe. With advanced statistical techniques and a very broad data set, it will quantify publication bias in all scientific disciplines, producing the first comparative and interdisciplinary study of this phenomenon. By analysing discourse and narrative in popular science articles and in editorials of scientific journals, it will investigate public’s attitude towards research integrity and bias. The project will contribute to maintaining the reputation of excellence of European research, and it will be of great interest to decision makers and to scientists in all disciplines. In addition, it will allow the fellow to train in many techniques of social research, and to resume a scientific career addressing a largely unexplored field of study.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

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Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP7-PEOPLE-2007-2-1-IEF
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MC-IEF - Intra-European Fellowships (IEF)

Coordinator

THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
EU contribution
€ 161 792,99
Address
OLD COLLEGE, SOUTH BRIDGE
EH8 9YL Edinburgh
United Kingdom

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Region
Scotland Eastern Scotland Edinburgh
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

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