Don’t talk of a crisis in research reproducibility, EU advised

Policymakers warned not to exacerbate a lack of public trust in science and expertise

Researchers’ inability to reproduce each other’s findings is a “serious problem” but, contrary to some views, it should not be treated as a crisis, the European Commission has been advised.

Framing problems with reproducibility as a crisis could “put science in jeopardy”, such as around public trust in vaccines, a group of nine experts including Lee Baker, a healthcare communications consultant, said in a paper published by the Commission on 1 December.