# Count replications and open data in hiring and promotion

Source: https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-tr2-tenure-replication-credit/  
OnCo record `idea-tr2-tenure-replication-credit` (Idea). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Scientists are promoted for first-time discoveries and journal prestige, not for replicating others' work or sharing data. A structured section in tenure and promotion dossiers for replications conducted, data and code shared, and registered reports, weighted explicitly in decisions, would change what scientists spend their time on.

## Summary

Career incentives drive the reproducibility problem: novelty and journal prestige are rewarded, replication and data sharing are not. Institutions signing DORA have pledged to reduce reliance on journal metrics. A concrete step is a structured section in tenure and promotion dossiers for replication studies conducted, data and code shared, registered reports and independent verification of one's own findings, weighted explicitly in decisions.

## Fields

- Kind: Idea
- Last checked: 2026-09-08
- Hypothesis: Institutions adopting the credit will see a doubling of replication studies and data deposits by their faculty within five years relative to matched institutions.
- Rationale: Behaviour follows incentives; the shift to open data in genomics followed funder and institutional requirements, not exhortation.
- Proposed test: Five cancer centres adopt the dossier section; track faculty replication and sharing outputs against matched centres.
- Maturity: speculative
- Actor: policy

## Sources

- DORA: https://sfdora.org/

## Connected records

- ideas: [Funders set aside a fixed share of budget for independent replication](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-tr2-replication-set-aside/)
- bottlenecks: [Incentives reward me-too drugs and marginal gains](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-incentive-misalignment/), [Preclinical results do not reproduce](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-reproducibility/)

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