On the Importance of Permanent Employment Contracts for Research Quality and Robustness

Across disciplines, research quality benefits from transparency and openness, as well as efforts to replicate and reproduce. While open scholarship is experiencing a surge, thanks to efforts to promote robust research grounded in the principles of good research practice sparked by individuals and grassroots approaches, it is still far from the norm. To achieve system-wide change, these efforts at the vanguard of reforming research practices must also become reflected in institutional structures and commitments, and in incentive structures. The goal should be an overhauled academic system that supports and promotes robust and reproducible research, as a solid stepping stone for future research endeavors and for the reliable translation of findings into policies, interventions and innovations. In the current debate about the employment situation in the German academe (#ichbinhanna, “I am Hanna”), we see a multitude of connections between improving the precarious labor conditions for researchers in Germany and improving research practices, offering the chance to leverage the potential for structural change to benefit research quality.