Social science prizes to promote transparency in research

The Leamer-Rosenthal Prizes for Open Social Science, named in part after UCLA professor Edward Leamer, will be awarding grants of up to $15,000 for researchers.

The Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences, or BITSS, will be awarding prizes to educators and scholars worldwide for research that is transparent and open in a competition named for professors from UCLA and UC Riverside.

BITSS is an international network of researchers aiming to promote openness and transparency in research studies.

Leamer is considered to be one of the first researchers within the social sciences to present his research results in an open and transparent manner, according to the BITSS website.

According to BITSS, these prizes will encourage researchers to report their findings accurately, without dramatizing them in order to increase the likelihood that their findings will be published.

The competition has two categories, one of which awards up to $15,000 in cash prizes to researchers just beginning their studies as pioneers in various fields of social science. The second awards up to $10,000 to faculty leaders who teach correct research protocol in the social sciences.

Applications for the Leamer-Rosenthal prizes will be available until September, and winners will be announced in October of this year.

Compiled by Meghan Hodges, Bruin contributor.