Two researchers from the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Prof. Dr. Rolf Zwaan and Dr. Robin Bouwman, contributed to the replication of existing research within the international Systematizing Confidence in Open Research and Evidence (SCORE) programme. The study has been published in the prestigious journal Nature.
As calls for transparency in science grow louder, the results of the international SCORE programme show that the credibility of research is not a simple black-and-white issue. The project, involving hundreds of researchers worldwide, examined the robustness of thousands of claims in the social and behavioural sciences. It assessed not only whether results could be reproduced through reanalysis of existing data, but also through hundreds of replication studies. The research demonstrates that Open Science practices, such as the sharing of data and analysis code, form the backbone of reliable knowledge.
Replicability
Within the project, Zwaan and Bouwman focused on replicability: do we find the same effect when a study is fully repeated with new participants?
One example of a replication conducted by Robin Bouwman and colleagues concerns an original study suggesting that people are only willing to contribute to a public good when a positive outcome is guaranteed, and not when there is a risk of loss. However, the replication showed a different result: participants contributed in both scenarios, with no significant difference between conditions. Rolf Zwaan was involved in designing several psychological replication studies, enabling them to be carried out by other researchers.
Rolf Zwaan states: “The results of SCORE show that the social sciences are willing to critically reflect on themselves. By placing openness and self-correction at the centre, we are building a science that is not only engaging, but above all reliable for society. The findings demonstrate the value of the current transition to Open Science. They also show that the status of a journal or the number of citations is not always the best indicator of the reliability of a specific result.”
The findings have recently been published in a special collection of three articles in the prestigious journal Nature. The results provide a unique insight into how we can safeguard scientific quality in the future. The academic lead of this project is Brian Nosek of the Center for Open Science.
Investigating the replicability of the social and behavioural science
Nature, 1 April 2026
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-10078-y
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Marjolein Kooistra, kooistra@essb.eur.nl
