Have you heard about the ‘replication crisis’ facing science?

Scientists in many academic and applied fields around the world are grappling with a crisis of confidence.

Results of many prominent, widely-accepted studies have been thrown into question, as attempts to recreate the experiments have failed.

Social sciences, economics and other disciplines have been on a difficult journey over the past decade, grappling with the implications of challenges to long-held notions.

This week’s episode of the BETA podcast dissects the issue, with Professor Ben Newell, Deputy Head of the School of Psychology at the University of New South Wales, and Harry Greenwell, BETA’s own head of trial design and evaluation.

Ben goes through some famous replication-fails, while Harry talks about what BETA and others are doing to mitigate these risks and give confidence to findings.

You can hear the full story on BETA’s website.

This is the first in our new series of podcasts, where we explore interesting topics with experts in the field.

You can find all past episodes of BETA’s podcast at the website.

Disclaimer: BETA's podcasts discuss behavioural economics and insights with a range of academics, experts and practitioners. The views expressed are those of the individuals interviewed and do not necessarily reflect those of the Australian Government.