The enthusiasm for “Good Science” in Japan
A report on the Metascience Meetup 2026 in Tokyo
by Rei Nouchi (Research Institute for Higher Education, Hiroshima University) and Noel Kikuchi (National Graduate Institute for Public Studies)
The Metascience Meetup 2026 was held over two days, 14–15 March 2026, at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo. The event was organised by members of the Metascience Research Group—an assembly of individuals from research institutions, government and funding agencies, and private think tanks who have come together across institutional boundaries to improve the scientific enterprise—along with additional volunteers who share the same mission. The meeting was co-organised by Hiroshima University’s Research Institute for Higher Education / Center for Co‑creative Sciences, and Osaka University’s Center on Ethical, Legal and Social Issues / Center for Infectious Disease Education and Research / EIPM Center).
The meeting was motivated by the growing global attention to metascience. Since 2019, the international Metascience Conference has been held biennially, and its most recent iteration in June–July 2025 reportedly drew more than 800 participants worldwide. Feeling the intensity and diversity of ideas flowing in from abroad, the Meetup 2026 organisers hoped to bring that momentum to Japan, reinterpret it within local contexts, and create a venue where the wide range of potential stakeholders in Japanese metascience could gather for open discussion.
A defining feature of this event was its insistence on strictly in-person participation, despite the prevalence of online and hybrid formats today (with only one key speaker joining remotely). By prioritizing candid, face-to-face conversations and the “chemical reactions” that arise from unexpected encounters, the event drew about 80 participants each day and fostered a uniquely dense atmosphere in which metascience was treated as an essential dimension of scientific practice.
The meeting was advertised. Publicity was shared through mailing lists from academic societies (including philosophy of science and STS), university websites, social media, and word of mouth. Pre-registration data showed that while most attendees were researchers, a wide range of non-research stakeholders also took part.
This diversity reflects the expanding interest in metascience in Japan—an expansion fueled not least by expectations surrounding Japan’s 7th Science, Technology, and Innovation Basic Plan, which is launching this year. The plan explicitly states the need to incorporate insights from metascience and the science of science to continually reassess the effectiveness of science as a form of human intellectual activity, as well as the frameworks used to evaluate research. Many anticipate that this will translate into concrete policy initiatives.
The program started with the opening address titled “SEIZE THE META-MOMENT! Japan in a changing global landscape for the science of science itself” by Prof. James Wilsdon at RoRI / UCL, and featured two additional keynote lectures and five sessions: Lightning Talks; Trends in Metascience in Japan and Abroad; Science of Science; AI for Science and Metascience; and Open Science. These themes were chosen to provide newcomers with an accessible overview of internationally relevant debates in the field. At the same time, the content went beyond quantitative analyses: researchers specialising in philosophy of science and ethics added new layers of insight, giving the event a distinctive character rather than simply replicating overseas discussions.
Japan has few opportunities for researchers, government officials, funding agencies, and private-sector support organisations to openly exchange views across institutional lines, largely because of potential conflicts of interest. Yet at this meeting, participants spoke candidly about their concerns without slipping into unproductive criticism or superficial praise. This was due in part to the personalities and communication skills of the speakers, but more fundamentally, it reflected a shared expectation of what metascience can contribute to science.
A key theme running through all discussions was how to integrate “diversity” into the systems that support scientific activity—diversity in reproducibility, diversity in evaluation practices, diversity in funding mechanisms, and more. Under the broad umbrella of metascience, these diverse perspectives naturally lead to multiple viewpoints rather than a single conclusion. If the metascience community has a unifying goal—taken to its conceptual limit—it is the advancement of good science. But bringing this ideal closer to practical implementation requires multiple models and frameworks. Participants reflected on how individual conceptions of “good science,” shifting between the particular and the universal, might contribute to the optimization of the scientific community.
In this way, the two-day meeting wove together discussions on the diversification of science and the value frameworks that underpin it—a rich exploration of what “good science” can be, and how we might collectively strive toward it.
From RoRI
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