On October 10, in cooperation with the Nosmo (the Dutch society of methodologists), a symposium is organized on improving science and to discuss the application of scientific methods and research results in the social and medical sciences.

Three questions are central in the discussions:

• Are the current methodological guidelines sufficient to review and judge the quality of scientific research?
• Is the current practice of accounting in peer-reviewed journals sufficient to detect sloppy practices or fraudulent practices?
• Are there new methodological guidelines developed that can improve the quality and applicability of scientific research?

To discuss these questions leading scientific researchers are invited from the medical field, social sciences and methodology and statistics.

Speakers

Prof. Dr. Jim van Os – on “Benchmarking in mental health: a dead end exercise disguised as ‘ROM’”

Prof. Dr. Gerard Pasterkamp – on “Changing the academic reward system to improve translational medicine”

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Stroebe – on “The value of multi-lab replication studies as a means of evaluating psychological theories”.

Dr. Rens van de Schoot – on “Bayesian Statistics in the Applied Literature: Prevalence, Implementation, and the Impact of Priors”