---
title: "Metascience"
chunk: 5/7
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metascience"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:44:21.146005+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Some research is investigating scientific controversy or controversies, and may identify currently ongoing major debates (e.g. open questions), and disagreement between scientists or studies. One study suggests the level of disagreement was highest in the social sciences and humanities (0.61%), followed by biomedical and health sciences (0.41%), life and earth sciences (0.29%); physical sciences and engineering (0.15%), and mathematics and computer science (0.06%). Such research may also show, where the disagreements are, especially if they cluster, including visually such as with cluster diagrams.

=== Challenges of interpretation of pooled results ===

Studies about a specific research question or research topic are often reviewed in the form of higher-level overviews in which results from various studies are integrated, compared, critically analyzed and interpreted. Examples of such works are scientific reviews and meta-analyses. These and related practices face various challenges and are a subject of metascience.
Various issues with available studies such as, for example, heterogeneity of methods used may lead to faulty conclusions of the meta-analysis.

=== Knowledge integration and living documents ===
Various problems require swift integration of new and existing science-based knowledge. Especially setting where there are a large number of loosely related projects and initiatives benefit from a common ground or "commons".
Evidence synthesis can be applied to important and, notably, both relatively urgent and certain global challenges: "climate change, energy transitions, biodiversity loss, antimicrobial resistance, poverty eradication and so on". It was suggested that a better system would keep summaries of research evidence up to date via living systematic reviews – e.g. as living documents. While the number of scientific papers and data (or information and online knowledge) has risen substantially, the number of published academic systematic reviews has risen from "around 6,000 in 2011 to more than 45,000 in 2021". An evidence-based approach is important for progress in science, policy, medical and other practices. For example, meta-analyses can quantify what is known and identify what is not yet known and place "truly innovative and highly interdisciplinary ideas" into the context of established knowledge which may enhance their impact. (see above)

=== Factors of success and progress ===
It has been hypothesized that a deeper understanding of factors behind successful science could "enhance prospects of science as a whole to more effectively address societal problems".

==== Novel ideas and disruptive scholarship ====
Two metascientists reported that "structures fostering disruptive scholarship and focusing attention on novel ideas" could be important as in a growing scientific field citation flows disproportionately consolidate to already well-cited papers, possibly slowing and inhibiting canonical progress. A study concluded that to enhance impact of truly innovative and highly interdisciplinary novel ideas, they should be placed in the context of established knowledge.

==== Mentorship, partnerships and social factors ====
Other researchers reported that the most successful – in terms of "likelihood of prizewinning, National Academy of Science (NAS) induction, or superstardom" – protégés studied under mentors who published research for which they were conferred a prize after the protégés' mentorship. Studying original topics rather than these mentors' research-topics was also positively associated with success. Highly productive partnerships are also a topic of research – e.g. "super-ties" of frequent co-authorship of two individuals who can complement skills, likely also the result of other factors such as mutual trust, conviction, commitment and fun.

==== Study of successful scientists and processes, general skills and activities ====
The emergence or origin of ideas by successful scientists is also a topic of research, for example reviewing existing ideas on how Mendel made his discoveries, – or more generally, the process of discovery by scientists. Scientific discovery is fundamentally collaborative, involving the appropriation, modification, and combination of existing ideas rather than isolated innovation. Few studies examine the cognitive processes, information practices, and digital workflows that characterize productive researchers.

==== Labor advantage ====
A study theorized that in many disciplines, larger scientific productivity or success by elite universities can be explained by their larger pool of available funded laborers. The study found that university prestige was only associated with higher productivity for faculty with group members, not for faculty publishing alone or the group members themselves. This is presented as evidence that the outsize productivity of elite researchers is not from a more rigorous selection of talent by top universities, but from labor advantages accrued through greater access to funding and the attraction of prestige to graduate and postdoctoral researchers.

==== Ultimate impacts ====
Success in science (as indicated in tenure review processes) is often measured in terms of metrics like citations, not in terms of the eventual or potential impact on lives and society, which awards (see above) sometimes do. Problems with such metrics are roughly outlined elsewhere in this article and include that reviews replace citations to primary studies. There are also proposals for changes to the academic incentives systems that increase the recognition of societal impact in the research process.

==== Progress studies ====
A proposed field of "Progress Studies" could investigate how scientists (or funders or evaluators of scientists) should be acting, "figuring out interventions" and study progress itself. The field was explicitly proposed in a 2019 essay and described as an applied science that prescribes action.