Plate Nº 27 · recorded October 8, 2026
Science Policy & FundingReported finding
NSF and UKRI to Formalize Metascience Partnership Within Months
NSF and UKRI say they will formalize a joint metascience partnership within months, studying how research funding, review and evaluation can themselves be improved.
By Elena Vasquez3 min read645 words
In brief
- NSF and UKRI intend to formalize their metascience collaboration "in the coming months."
- The partnership links the NSF Office of Metascience with the UK Metascience Unit.
- Four initial areas: productivity and impact measurement, review and funding improvement, assessment of new methods, and responsible metascience data analysis.
- The UK side builds on the UKRI Strategy 2026-31; the US side on the Kyoto Vision and the NSF Golden Age memorandum.
- The partnership supports an international network of metascience units for shared best practices and coordinated experiments.
The US National Science Foundation (NSF) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) plan to formalize a joint metascience collaboration "in the coming months," aiming to turn the tools of science onto the funding system itself.
In a joint statement, the two agencies said they will work together on four fronts: measuring research productivity and impact, improving how research is reviewed and funded, assessing how new methods and tools are used in research, and enabling responsible analysis of metascience-relevant data.
The partnership links the NSF Office of Metascience with the UK Metascience Unit. It also aims to seed an international network of metascience units, bringing together like-minded countries to swap ideas, share best practices and run coordinated experiments on applied metascience.
What is metascience?
Metascience applies the experimental and analytical methods of science to the practice of science itself. Instead of only studying cells, materials or galaxies, researchers study how science works: which funding mechanisms produce the best results, how peer review performs, and how new tools spread through laboratories.
The NSF and UKRI statement puts the core idea plainly. The agencies "recognize that the methods by which research is funded, conducted, and evaluated can themselves be studied and improved," and that each side can learn from the other's programs, data and institutional experience.
In other words, the machinery of science — grant panels, review processes, evaluation metrics — becomes the object of study, not just the means of doing it.
What is the partnership based on?
The collaboration builds on policy foundations laid out separately by each country. On the US side, that includes the Kyoto Vision for a Golden Age of Science and the "NSF Leadership in a New Golden Age of Science" memorandum. On the UK side, it draws on the UKRI Strategy 2026-31.
Both agencies say they intend to build on the metascience principles those documents articulate. The joint statement frames the new cooperation as a natural extension of work the two organizations have already done individually.
What will the collaboration actually cover?
The statement lists four initial areas of exploration:
- Measuring research productivity and impact — developing better ways to gauge what research output actually achieves, beyond simple publication counts.
- Improving research review and funding — studying and refining how grant applications are judged and how money is allocated.
- Assessing how new methods and tools are used in research — tracking how innovations in technique and instrumentation spread and perform in practice.
- Enabling responsible analysis of metascience-relevant data — making sure data about the research enterprise can be studied safely and ethically.
These are exploratory commitments rather than funded programs. The statement says the agencies "intend to explore" cooperation in these areas, and no budgets, timelines or specific projects have yet been announced.
Why does the international network matter?
Beyond the bilateral NSF-UKRI work, the partnership supports building an international network of metascience units. According to the statement, such a network would bring together like-minded countries to exchange ideas, share best practices, and "explore coordinated experiments and challenges regarding applied metascience."
Coordinated experiments could allow different countries to test the same funding or review reforms in parallel, giving stronger evidence than any single nation could gather alone. The statement does not name which other countries might join the network or when it would launch.
What happens next?
The two agencies say they will formalize the collaboration in the coming months, moving from a statement of intent to a working partnership. The immediate goal is to "identify initial concrete, ambitious opportunities for joint metascience work."
Details remain thin for now. The statement sets direction rather than announcing results, and observers will be watching for the specific projects, funding arrangements and governance structures that follow. Still, the commitment signals that both the US and UK see the scientific enterprise itself — not just its outputs — as something worth studying systematically, and studying together.
via nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov (Original)
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