Metascience, which can be broadly defined as ‘the science of science itself’ (Wilsdon et al., 2025), involves the analysis of research systems and a commitment to ethical research methods and open science practices (Peterson & Pankofsky, 2023; Figure 1). Over the past decade, metascience has gained substantial attention in the social sciences, partly led by the ‘replication crisis’ in psychology. The aim of this Special Collection is to bring together novel metascience research that examines the evolutionary human sciences as a scientific field — its people, its practices, its structure and its outputs. The long-term benefit will ultimately be the generation of more impactful, rigorous, open and inclusive science. 

Figure 1 Strands of metascience (image based on Peterson & Panofsky, 2023).

Potential themes of inquiry could include collaboration patterns, gender biases, de-colonial research practices, how we conduct fieldwork, use of AI in the discipline, open science and preregistration, accessibility of datasets, replication attempts, student demographics, career trajectories, peer-review processes, laboratory life, criticisms of research methods, public reception, popular science and policy impacts.

New opportunities for innovative research have arisen through greater access to publication databases and new analytic tools; for example, data sharing and reuse is now happening on an unprecedented scale, and new bibliographic tools (e.g., OpenAlex) allow anyone to conduct large-scale analyses of publication datasets that used to be proprietary.

For this Special Collection, we welcome all sorts of empirical approaches, from “Big Data” analyses, to network analyses or ethnographic work, plus historical approaches or comparisons with practices in other disciplines. Methodological diversity has always been a hallmark of our field, and we wish to leverage this breadth to gather a rich and diverse collection of scholarship. We are also keen to gather a diverse roster of contributors, in terms of gender, nationality, geographical location, and career stage.

Lastly, we welcome contributions from scholars specialized in metascience, including scientometrics, bibliometrics, science and technology studies (STS), and the sociology/philosophy of science, whose outside perspective and methodological expertise might bring new insights into our field.

There is still much to learn about the evolutionary human sciences as a research field: How is peer-review conducted and by whom? How do gender and country of origin affect career trajectories? Who funds our research? Who reads our work? How connected are we to adjacent fields? etc. As scientists, we believe that answers to these questions can only be found through robust empirical methods. So, if you have a project that explores such questions or related ones, we would be delighted to receive your proposal.

The call for manuscripts is now open!

If you are considering submitting a manuscript for the Special Collection, you are welcome to contact the editors at ehsmetascience@gmail.com in advance with any questions or with a short description of your proposed manuscript (300 words maximum) for feedback.

Manuscripts will be considered and sent for review once they are submitted and will be published online at Evolutionary Human Sciences as soon as they are accepted, which means that no additional delay is incurred by submitting to this Special Collection. Evolutionary Human Sciences is a fully open access journal that has an equity initiative for scholars from low- and middle-income countries as well as APC waiver options for unfunded/unaffiliated researchers. 

Deadline for Submissions: May 31, 2027

Special Collection editors: Louis Bachaud (Mines Paris, PSL University, France), H Clark Barrett (University of California, Los Angeles, USA) and Gillian R. Brown (University of St Andrews, UK)

References

Peterson, D., & Panofsky, A. (2023). Metascience as a scientific social movement. Minerva, 61, 147–174. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024...

Wilsdon, J., Brasil, A., Waltman, L., & Steyn, B. (2025). The past, present and future of UK metascience: supplementary data and analysis for ‘A Year in Metascience’. UK Metascience Unit. DOI: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.fig...