CA21139 - 3Rs concepts to improve the quality of biomedical science
A COST Action is an interdisciplinary research network that brings researchers and innovators together to investigate a topic of their choice for 4 years. COST Actions are made up of researchers from academia, SMEs, public institutions and other relevant organisations or interested parties.
In recent years, awareness of the existence of a crisis of reproducibility and predictability in biomedical science has grown. The reproducibility crisis refers to the problem researchers struggle to replicate or reproduce scientific studies. There have been many publications that consider why preclinical research is unreproducible and unpredictable, pointing to shortcomings in reporting and statistical practices. Confounding factors, which are part of the laboratory environment and will influence both dependent and independent variables, continue to be identified, suggesting that our knowledge of their existence is far from complete. Better statistical methodology will play a central role in improving the reproducibility of science to produce robust and repeatable research. Another area of improvement is the development of new methods to better define and evaluate replication success and improve predictability. In this light, the development and introduction of new, powerful concepts for biomedical research are essential to reduce the production of unrepeatable and unpredictable data. This has enormous scientific, economic and social significance. In this context, it is suggested that discoveries and concepts from the field of 3R can greatly help to improve biomedical research at several levels.
The main goal of the COST action IMPROVE:
Establish a network that will work on improving, harmonizing and promoting 3Rs concepts, data and documents, in order to improve the quality of biomedical science.