A recent article in the journal Nature highlights a concerning trend in some areas of the social sciences, suggesting that up to 70% of published results cannot be replicated. This replication crisis is particularly prevalent in fields like economics, philosophy, and psychology, where between 35% and 70% of published findings reportedly fail to withstand testing with new data.

In response to this challenge, a new initiative has emerged to foster systematic replication efforts. In October 2022, a workshop held at a research center in Oslo aimed to replicate papers from economics journals. Surprisingly, 70 participants from across Europe expressed interest, signaling a strong desire among researchers to replicate studies.

Recognizing the need for more rigorous replication, the authors of the Nature article launched the Institute for Replication, a virtual non-profit organization. The institute organizes one-day workshops known as "replication games" to validate studies in the fields of economics and political science.

Since October 2022, 12 workshops have taken place in Europe, North America, and Australia, with three more planned for the current year. Each workshop involves approximately 65 researchers organized into teams of 3–5 people. These teams undertake the critical task of either replicating papers, generating new data and testing hypotheses afresh, or attempting to reproduce them by re-analyzing published data to ensure the results hold. Importantly, the nature of the work allows much of it to be completed in a single day.

The findings of each team are released as preprint reports, contributing to an ongoing effort to address the replication crisis in the social sciences. By collating and publishing these reports annually as a meta-paper, the initiative aims to shed light on the reproducibility of research results, providing valuable insights into the reliability of scientific studies in these fields.