by Oleksandr Berezko, TRUSTparency Team Leader at Lviv Polytechnic National University
The Metascience 2025 Conference, held June 30 – July 2, 2025, at University College London, marked the latest and largest iteration of a biennial gathering of metascience scholars and practitioners. Organized by the Research on Research Institute (RoRI, UK) and the Center for Open Science (COS, USA), the event drew over 800 participants from approximately 65 countries, representing an expansive, interdisciplinary community engaged in advancing the scientific study of science itself. The conference incorporated multiple thematic tracks, unconference sessions, and a series of virtual pre-conference symposia, underscoring its inclusive approach to foster dialogue before and during the in-person summit. This growth in scale and sophistication reflects metascience coming of age as a vibrant, globally coordinated discipline.
Prof. James Wilsdon, RoRI Executive Director, moderates the panel discussion at the conference opening (Photo: Oleksandr Berezko)
Metascience 2025 focused on advancing openness, integrity, and reproducibility in research – values the community sees as fundamental to scholarship. The conference examined peer review, research evaluation, impact, open science, inequality, and other core themes, serving both as a venue for sharing findings and as a driver of evolving norms. A key outcome was the launch of the Metascience Alliance, a coalition of funders, institutions, publishers, policymakers, and infrastructure providers, now in a pilot phase through 2026, to coordinate efforts for more transparent, rigorous, and collaborative science worldwide. The participation of the TRUSTparency consortium representatives in the Metascience Conference 2025 and satellite events was strategically aligned with the project’s objectives and delivered clear added value to its ongoing mission. The conference provided a unique platform to engage directly with the global metascience community, where reproducibility, openness, and research integrity were addressed as central themes. This alignment created an optimal environment for communicating TRUSTparency’s core approach: to compile a structured and up-to-date collection of reproducibility interventions and co-develop institutional procedures (the Reproducibility Promotion Plans) to integrate these interventions in to the everyday work of research performing and funding organisations, publishers, and learned societies, with the aim to strengthen transparency and reproducibility in research.
During the event, consortium members were able to present the methodological foundations of TRUSTparency and establish contacts with stakeholders essential for the forthcoming pilot and validation phases. The open exchange of experiences with funders, publishers, policymakers, and research performing organisations confirmed the project’s relevance and identified opportunities for synergies with parallel initiatives in the reproducibility and integrity domain.
In particular, Oleksandr Berezko, TRUSTparency team leader at Lviv Polytechnic National University, joined the conference in person and participated in the panel discussion “What’s the future of grassroots networks for reproducibility and reform?” chaired by Ulf Tölch (Berlin Institute of Health at Charité, Germany) and featuring representatives from the European Commission (Ana Teresa Mota of DG RTD), UK Reproducibility Network (Neil Jacobs), and other important stakeholders. The panel examined how reproducibility networks (RNs) and the metascience community can strengthen collaboration, particularly as reproducibility rises on the EU policy agenda. The session highlighted how grassroots initiatives can draw on metascientific evidence under various circumstances, how reproducibility networks (RNs) provide a backbone for stronger research, and what makes partnerships succeed. These takeaways are especially timely for the TRUSTparency project, as collaboration with national RNs like the Ukrainian Reproducibility Network (UARN) will be central during the pilot phase.
Metascience 2025 also provided the first opportunity for an in-person meeting of the emerging Global Federation of Reproducibility Networks (GFRN), as many of its members were present at the conference. It was inspiring to witness leading voices in reproducibility, metascience, and open science gather from across Africa, Australia, the Americas, and Europe. This unique setting offered an excellent platform to present and exchange insights from the ERA-01-41 projects dedicated to strengthening research reproducibility (TIER2, OSIRIS, and iRISE), as well as to introduce the newly-launched TRUSTparency project. Panagiotis Kavouras, the TRUSTparency Scientific Coordinator, delivered a comprehensive online presentation, followed by an engaging Q&A and discussion on the project’s objectives, planned activities, and anticipated outcomes.
Overall, Metascience 2025 showcased the growing strength of the global metascience community and its collective drive to embed transparency, reproducibility, and integrity at the heart of research. For the TRUSTparency consortium, the conference was not only a milestone for visibility and engagement but also a springboard for future collaboration, providing momentum and partnerships that will be crucial as the project moves into its pilot and validation phases.