1st Interdisciplinary Symposium on Meta Science for Methods Research

Understanding and improving how methods are developed and evaluated

Mark your calendar!

Date: 31 August and 1 September, 2026

Location: University of Zurich Main Building, Room KOL-G-217, Rämistrasse 71, 8006 Zürich, Switzerland

Registration

The aim of this event is to bring together researchers from different fields of methodological research (including, but not limited to (bio)statistics, psychometrics, econometrics, bioinformatics, machine learning, quantitative methods for ecology, linguistics, etc.) who are interested in meta science on methods research, discuss how new quantitative methods are developed, evaluated and published in our respective fields, and how this process can be improved by sharing our thoughts and experiences across disciplines.

Confirmed keynote speakers include:

Abstract submission is closed, registration is still open. The number of on-site places is limited. Registrations will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis until June 15th. Attendance is free of charge. The symposium will also be live-streamed (registration also required). Researchers from all methodological research disciplines are welcome.

Join us to share your work, to exchange ideas, and to shape the future of meta science on methods research!

This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Reproducible Science and Research Synthesis of the University of Zurich, the Swiss National Science Foundation, Stadt Zürich, Kanton Zürich, and Zurich R courses.

Program

31 August 2026

Time
08:30 – 09:00 Registration
09:00 – 09:10 Welcome
Session 1 AI and Simulation
09:10 – 09:50 Keynote 1 – Anne-Laure Boulesteix: Evaluating statistical methods: a metascientific journey
09:50 – 10:05 Georgia Salanti: Generative AI versus human across multiple systematic review tasks: the regenAIrate project
10:05 – 10:20 Jamie Cummins: Methodological flexibility in the use of large language models in research
10:20 – 10:35 Daniel Heck: Evaluating the Quality of LLM Feature Extraction: A Systematic Simulation Workflow
10:35 – 10:50 Alex Ocampo: Calculating True Values in Causal Inference Simulation Studies via Gaussian Quadrature
10:50 – 11:00 Group Photo
11:00 – 11:20 Coffee Break
Session 2 Design and Reporting of Simulation Studies
11:20 – 12:00 Keynote 2 – Björn Siepe: Simulation studies in psychology: State of the art, problems, and potential solutions
12:00 – 12:15 Tim Angelike: Less but the same? Methods for Reducing the Size of Simulation Study Designs
12:15 – 12:30 Mirka Henninger: From Piloting to Publication: Transparency Over the Entire Life-Cycle of a Simulation Study
12:30 – 12:45 Anouk Bouma: Reporting Practices, Open Science Practices, and Trustworthiness of Simulation Studies in Psychology: A Questionnaire Study
12:45 – 13:00 Karoline Huth: Toward Reporting Standards for Methodological Research
13:00 – 14:30 Lunch Break
Session 3 Benchmarking and Knowledge Cumulation
14:30 – 15:10 Keynote 3 – Jean Yang: Beyond Rankings: Benchmark-Informed Method Recommendation
15:10 – 15:25 František Bartoš: Living Synthetic Benchmarks: A Neutral and Cumulative Framework for Simulation Studies
15:25 – 15:40 Carolin Strobl: Why benchmarking platforms alone will not solve the generalizability issue in methodological research
15:40 – 15:55 David Kronthaler: Multi-method specification curves for presenting simulation results
15:55 – 16:10 Edouard Bonneville: An update on the use of methodological research phases to formally assess the maturity of biostatistical methods
16:10 – 17:30 Coffee Break & Poster Session
18:30 Conference Dinner

1 September 2026

Time
08:30 – 09:00 Registration
09:00 – 09:10 Welcome
Session 4 Multiverse, Many Analysts and Robustness
09:10 – 09:50 Keynote 4 – Jessica K. Flake: Using Research Synthesis to Navigate the Multiverse
09:50 – 10:05 Mona Niethammer: Crowdsourcing methodological comparisons: A many-analysts simulation study to identify conditions under which results in convenience samples generalize to target populations
10:05 – 10:20 Michael Kammer: Exploring multiplicity of analysis strategies in practice: A tour of the TOPSTATS project
10:20 – 10:35 Balazs Aczel: Investigating the analytical robustness of the social and behavioural sciences
10:35 – 10:50 Johanna Einsiedler: Robustness at Scale: How fragile are empirical economic results?
10:50 – 11:20 Coffee Break
Session 5 Biostatistics, Methods Guidance and Open Science
11:20 – 12:00 Keynote 5 – Tim Morris: Trust and trustworthiness of research on biostatistical methods
12:00 – 12:15 Ewout Steyerberg: Recent criteria and simple rules for the required sample size to develop clinical prediction models: what does it matter?
12:15 – 12:30 Julian Hirt: Harvest plots in evidence syntheses: a meta-research study on their use and characteristics
12:30 – 12:45 Malena Chiaborelli: From methods research to methods guidance: an evolving collaborative research program
12:45 – 13:00 Hanne Oberman: Teaching Open Science and Reproducibility
13:00 – 14:30 Lunch Break
Session 6 Reproducibility, Peer Review and Publishing
14:30 – 15:10 Keynote 6 – Pablo Meyer Rojas: The Do’s and Don’ts of Benchmarking in Systems Biology
15:10 – 15:25 Christof Seiler: When hardware decides your biology: What we learned from running PCA on an HPC cluster
15:25 – 15:40 Felipe Fontana Vieira: rix: Ensuring Computational Reproducibility of Simulation Studies
15:40 – 15:55 Julien Chiquet: Computo: Redefining Academic Publishing through Native Computational Reproducibility
15:55 – 16:10 Pierre Neuvial: PCI StatML: an open peer review platform in the field of Statistics and Machine Learning
16:10 – 16:30 Farewell
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