NSF and UKRI announce metascience partnership
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The National Science Foundation and United Kingdom Research and Innovation announced a collaboration on metascience on Thursday 08 October 2026.
Both agencies intend to build on metascience principles outlined in the Kyoto Vision for a Golden Age of Science. The principles were also articulated in the NSF Leadership in a New Golden Age of Science memorandum and the UKRI Strategy 2026-31.
The NSF and UKRI will collaborate to apply the experimental and analytical process of science to the funding, practice, and orchestration of their respective science and technology enterprises. The agencies recognize that the methods by which research is funded, conducted, and evaluated can themselves be studied and improved.
The agencies intend to explore metascience cooperation in three areas. These areas are measuring research productivity and impact, assessing how new methods and tools are used in research, and enabling responsible analysis of metascience-relevant data.
The partnership between the NSF Office of Metascience and the UK Metascience Unit also supports the development of an international network of metascience units. This network will bring together like-minded countries to exchange ideas, share best practices, and explore coordinated experiments and challenges regarding applied metascience.
In the coming months, the NSF and UKRI intend to formalize this collaboration to put the partnership into practice and identify initial concrete and ambitious opportunities for joint metascience work.
