Jen Gold, co-head of the UK Metascience Unit in London, describes how science funding agencies are establishing metascience units to study how research is funded, performed, and evaluated using the scientific method.
The UK Metascience Unit launched in 2024 as a joint effort between the UK government's science department and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Gold co-founded this first metascience team embedded into a national research funding system. Running experiments on live funding processes can produce practical improvements, according to Gold.
In July, Michael Kratsios, director of the US Office of Science and Technology Policy, called for every federal science agency to establish such a unit. Ireland is also setting up a similar team.