Taking on chemistry's reproducibility problem
Efforts to get to grips with the problem have meant new ideas and technologies are now being brought to bear
Not a week passes without reproducibility in science – or the lack of it – hitting the headlines. Although much of the criticism is directed at the biomedical sciences or psychology, many of the same problems also pervade the chemical sciences. A survey of over 1500 scientists conducted by Nature last year revealed that 70% of researchers think that science faces a reproducibility crisis. Over half, however, still have faith in published literature in their field – with chemists being amongst the most confident despite reporting the most difficulty replicating other researchers’ or their own work.