The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will spend $174 million over five years on "R3PEATS," a new initiative aimed at "strengthening replication and reproducibility" of NIH-funded research. The program, which NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya announced in a Science editorial and a press briefing in September, is the agency's answer to the 20-year-old observation that most published research findings are false.
The initiative's name stands for "Rigor, Replicability, and Reproducibility to Promote Excellence, Accuracy, and Translation in Science." But just as Oreos are filled with "creme" because there is no cream in them and Cheez Whiz is only distantly related to cheese, R3PEATS will not repeat anything, thanks to resistance from NIH grantees.
