Forecasting Social Science Results
Dr Eva Vivalt, Wealth and Wellbeing Research Fellow and Lecturer at the Research School of Economics, Australian National University along with her co-Principal Investigator Stefano DellaVigna, University of California, Berkeley received $405,322 USD from the Sloan Foundation to build, test, and study online platforms for collecting and cataloguing expert forecasts about the results of social science experiments. Their goal is to provide the social science research community with an online platform for systematically collecting and cataloguing forecasts of research results in order to (i) allow researchers and policymakers to capture predictions about the results of experiments, (ii) improve research designs by helping prioritize research questions and hypotheses, and (iii) mitigate publication bias by making clear before studies are conducted that some null results are to be expected.
Expected products include (i) an accessible online platform for collecting and cataloguing forecasts of research results and an identified sustainability model; (ii) forecasts (and ultimately results) of research projects tested through the platform; (iii) research articles stemming from the newly collected data; and (iv) de-identified data, code, and other materials for projects deposited on an open access platform.