AN INSTITUTE TO STUDY HOW RESEARCH IS DONE.

AN INSTITUTE TO STUDY HOW RESEARCH IS DONE. I have posted a number of times about research by John Ioannidis on statistical studies that overstate the results of studies that have sample sizes that are too small. (see, for example, here). This Economist article tells about how Dr. Ioannids is now going to head an institute at Stanford for “research on research”, the study of how research is actually conducted. The institute will be known as The Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (“METRICS”). The Economist article has a startling description of other recent research: “A recent series of articles in the Lancet noted that, in 2010, about $200 billion (an astonishing 85% of the world’s spending on medical research) was squandered on studies that were flawed in their design, redundant, never published or poorly reported.”