RoRI convenes global metascience panel at OECD Blue Sky Forum

At the 4th OECD Blue Sky Forum in Paris, RoRI convened a major parallel session on metascience bringing together perspectives from the UK, the US, Austria, Ireland, Japan, and international evidence networks to explore the drivers, opportunities, risks, and policy implications of metascience.

Chaired by James Wilsdon (RoRI/UCL) and introduced by Cecilia Cabello (OECD NESTI), the session featured insights from Seunghyun Lee (RoRI/UCL), Jack Leahy (UK DSIT), Jason Gallo (US NSF), Thomas König (FORWIT), Peter Clifford (Research Ireland), and Kazuhiro Hayashi (NISTEP).

The session marked the first public appearance of Jason Gallo in his newly appointed role as Director of the Office of Metascience at the US National Science Foundation (NSF).

Gallo joined the RoRI panel just days after taking up his post. The NSF officially announced the creation of the Office of Metascience on 10 September in an open letter responding to the White House OSTP report, Science: A New Golden Age.

Housed within the NSF Office of the Director, the new office is tasked with developing, rigorously evaluating, and scaling innovative approaches to research funding, merit review, and program management.

Joining RoRI’s metascience session, Gallo offered OECD delegates an early look at how the agency plans to build data infrastructure and run prospective grantmaking experiments to generate robust evidence on what works in research administration.