The International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) has an open call for proposals for researchers to replicate and extend the analysis of data from major development interventions and publications:
The primary objective of the replication programme is to improve the quality of evidence available for development policymaking and programme design. More specifically, the replication programme seeks to:Completed replications will be published through the 3ie website and working paper series. In addition, a special issue of the Journal of Development Effectiveness will be published containing a selection of studies resulting from this first request for applications.
- Verify the findings, and examine the robustness of findings, in selected influential, innovative, or controversial impact evaluations of development interventions;
- Improve the incentives of researchers to conduct careful and responsible data analysis.
Details for this CFP are here: link. More details on 3ie’s replication program are here: link. Questions about the CFP need to be submitted by July 13, and applications need to be in by July 31. Note that this CFP is only about replicating data analyses, not replicating studies in their entirety. 3ie has prioritized a set of “candidate studies” for this round of replication funding: link.
I use this kind of data-analysis replication regularly in my teaching, and I applaud this effort. It would be particularly useful for researchers and graduate students considering either (i) designing new research that builds on the findings any of the candidate studies or (ii) new analytical methods that explore, e.g, effect heterogeneity, distributional effects, or violations of standard assumptions (e.g., violations of no interference assumptions). In either case, replication and exploration of the robustness of past findings would be a crucial first step. This is a chance to build that first step up and turn it into an output of its own.
