{"entity":{"id":"idea-tr2-phd-replication-year","kind":"idea","name":"Every cancer biology PhD begins with a funded replication of a published finding","aka":[],"tldr":"Make the first project of every cancer biology doctoral student a funded, pre-registered attempt to repeat a published finding chosen from a curated list of translationally relevant results, with the outcome published in a replication registry. Students learn power analysis, blinding and reporting, and the field gets thousands of replications a year.","summary":"First-year doctoral students need training projects with clear methods and a defined endpoint; replications provide exactly that, while teaching pre-registration, power analysis, blinding and reporting. Programmes that have tried this (in psychology) report strong educational outcomes. A cancer biology version, with findings chosen from a curated list of translationally important results and outcomes published in a replication registry, would create a steady replication workforce at marginal cost.","asOf":"2026-09-08","links":[{"label":"Bottleneck evidence (Preclinical results do not reproduce): Errington et al., Investigating the replicability of preclinical cancer biology (eLife 2021)","url":"https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.71601"}],"tags":[],"related":["idea-tr2-replication-set-aside","idea-tr2-replication-status-badge"],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":["b-reproducibility","b-workforce"],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"hypothesis":"Participating programmes will publish at least one replication per student, and students will show measurably better methodological practice in subsequent thesis work than matched controls.","rationale":"Training and replication are complementary: the student gains skills, the field gains evidence, and the incentive problem is sidestepped because the student is not competing for novelty.","test":"Pilot in five doctoral programmes for three cohorts; track replications published and assess later methodological quality.","maturity":"speculative","actor":"research","cost":"medium","horizonYears":4},"route":"/ideas/idea-tr2-phd-replication-year/","neighbours":{"idea":[{"id":"idea-tr2-replication-status-badge","kind":"idea","name":"A replication status badge on every cancer paper, visible in PubMed","route":"/ideas/idea-tr2-replication-status-badge/"},{"id":"idea-tr2-replication-set-aside","kind":"idea","name":"Funders set aside a fixed share of budget for independent replication","route":"/ideas/idea-tr2-replication-set-aside/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-workforce","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Not enough oncologists, nurses, pathologists, physicists","route":"/bottlenecks/b-workforce/"},{"id":"b-reproducibility","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Preclinical results do not reproduce","route":"/bottlenecks/b-reproducibility/"}],"roadmap":[{"id":"drug-discovery-roadmap","kind":"roadmap","name":"Drug discovery roadmap: screening in mice → maps of dependency → designing in silico","route":"/roadmaps/drug-discovery-roadmap/"}]}}