Open Science Community Utrecht

One of our first alliances was with the Open Science Community Utrecht (OSCU). Stefan was already a member, so it was relatively easy for him to come into contact with the founders of OSCU. Firstly, we asked whether they were willing to include a paragraph about us in their monthly newsletter. The founder of OSCU then came to us with the suggestion that we would become an OSCU initiative. OSCU initiatives are projects set up by OSCU members, which are featured on the website. This way, open science supporters can come together to support each other and work towards attaining goals together. The following text was put on the website:

“A few students at Utrecht University, one of them our very own member Stefan Gaillard, have launched a new journal. And not just a journal, but a journal dedicated to providing a platform for scientists who did not get the research results they wanted. The journal is appropriately called Journal of Trial and Error. Specifically, the journal will publish high quality research that failed to reject the null hypothesis. Articles will be double-blind peer-reviewed. In addition, the scientific articles will be matched with humanities articles that provide reflection from a historical, philosophical, or sociological perspective. Publishing research that failed to reject the null-hypothesis is important for battling publication bias and in turn the replication crisis. Being honest about the amount of research that comes to different findings, and how it comes to those, should be an integral part of Open Science.

The founders are looking for constructive criticism on their project and potential editors or peer reviewers. The first issue will be on the sciences of the mind, meaning psychology and neuroscience. Interested people can send a mail to info@jtrialerror.com.” In addition, we were mentioned in the May newsletter. We are very happy with the institutional support of OSCU. The founder also offered his help in distributing our first call for papers, which will launch this month (June 2019)!