Author: Improving Psych

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General

SIPS 10 Year Anniversary 2025

This year we are proudly celebrating the 10 Year Anniversary of The Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS)! SIPS is a service organisation aiming to promote higher quality, more rigorous, more replicable, and more cumulative psychological science by pursuing activities including:

  • Improving training and research practices
  • Improving policies/norms
  • Promoting metascience
  • Increasing diversity, equity, and inclusivity in psychology

Five core values drive our efforts: self-improvement, transparency and openness, critical evaluation, inclusivity, and civil dialogue.

Here we provide a brief history of SIPS, as well as reflections on what we have achieved to date and what the future holds!

History of SIPS

Simine Vazire and Brian Nosek founded SIPS in June 2016 with support from the University of California, Davis, and the Center for Open Science (COS). We owe Simine and Brian a huge debt of gratitude for their critical roles in the creation of SIPS. SIPS was incorporated as a non-profit in July 2017, allowing us to begin collecting membership dues and to eventually become self-sustaining.

Our first meeting was held in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2016 with 100 attendees.

Following successful conferences once again in Charlottesville (2017) and then in Grand Rapids, Michigan (2018), we took the show out of the U.S. to Rotterdam, The Netherlands, for our first European conference (2019), drawing our highest ever in-person attendance (521).

In 2020, the pandemic hit, necessitating on-line only conferences for that and the following year. In both years we had massive on-line attendance (over 1000 at each). In 2022, we emerged from our living rooms to be once again face to face, this time in Victoria, British Columbia. We also began a continuing tradition that year of hosting both in-person and online conferences.

In 2023, we were back in Europe, in Padua, Italy, and then last year, in a truly groundbreaking development, we took SIPS to the Majority World for the first time, holding our conference in Nairobi, Kenya, in collaboration with the Busara Center.

Membership Growth and Social Media Following

The figure below shows our membership growth over time. After an initial period of growth, our numbers have now stabilized around 450. In addition, by the end of 2024 we had some 2,500 Bluesky followers and 899 Mastodon followers.

Conference Attendance

The figure below shows our in-person and online attendance over time. After initial growth, the pandemic moved us online with very high attendance. Following that unusual period, our attendance has declined, but remains respectable and roughly similar to pre-pandemic levels.

Note: Prior to 2020 conferences were in-person only, while in 2020 and 2021 they were online only. In 2022 and 2023 conferences were hybrid in-person/online while in 2024 they were separate events.

Signature Achievements

We have had many notable successes in our first decade. Here we highlight four examples: (1) Support for our members, (2) Collabra: Psychology, (3) PsyArXiv, and (4) Diversifying psychological science. Other products and achievements can be found here.

Member Support

Support for our members has taken many forms including, but not limited to, membership fee waivers, conference registration waivers and travel grants, and grants-in-aid for SIPS-relevant projects. The figure below shows growth in our financial support for these purposes over time. The dip in 2020 and 2021 reflects the fact that travel waivers were not needed because our conferences were fully online. The large increases in 2022 and 2023 reflects the introduction of our grants-in aid program.

Collabra: Psychology

Collabra: Psychology was launched in 2015 by University of California Press and quickly established as the official journal of SIPS. University of California Press is the non-profit, mission-driven publishing arm of the University of California system.

Led by Editor-in-Chief Don van Ravenzwaaij and a deep collective of Senior and Associate Editors appointed by SIPS, Collabra: Psychology publishes content across the broad field of psychology, as well as featuring a section focussed on methodology and research practice.

Collabra has championed numerous practices aimed at improving psychological science, including Open Peer review and Streamlined Review, as well as setting aside a portion of article processing charge (APC) fees to support publication by authors who otherwise lack publication funding.

The figure below shows impressive growth over time in Collabra publications. SIPS members are welcome and encouraged to submit to Collabra: Psychology – please visit online.ucpress.edu/collabra or see the journal’s Submission Guidelines for more information.

PsyArXiV

PsyArXiv is the free preprint server for psychology that hosts over 40,000 preprints, whitepapers, and other manuscripts. PsyArXiv makes it possible to disseminate and access academic research without paywalls and users do not pay to upload or download material.  It was established by SIPS in 2016 with generous support from the Center for Open Science, and is hosted on the Open Science Framework. PsyArXiv is now financially supported by direct funding from SIPS and by generous contributions from member institutions, to keep this vital service up and running. The figure below shows the rapid growth over time in preprints posted to PsyArXiv per year.

Diversifying Psychological Science

Increasingly, SIPS has emphasized the importance of diversity in developing a truly rigorous, ecologically valid, psychological science. Our efforts in this regard have been driven by the recommendations of the Global Engagement Taskforce Report commissioned by SIPS in 2020. Our Nairobi conference reflected this diversity emphasis in terms of location, attendance, session themes and leads, and our partnership with Busara. 

Some Reflections on SIPS from our Founders, Presidents, and Followers

We recently asked our current and former leaders, as well as our followers on social media, to provide short reflections on what SIPS has achieved and what it has meant to them professionally or personally. We include those reflections below.

What is immediately apparent from the word cloud derived from the reflections is an overwhelming emphasis on the importance of community. For all of us, SIPS is a community of scholars who are passionate about improving the quality of psychological science! What was formerly a scattered group of individuals has now grown into a much larger, interconnected, and increasingly global village.

Simine Vazire (Co-Founder and President 2016-17)

It’s been a pleasure watching SIPS grow and evolve since we founded it in 2016. I haven’t been involved in a leadership role in a few years, which makes it especially gratifying to see it continue to thrive. I think SIPS has done a great job adapting to how the field is changing, while sticking to its mission and values. Going to the conferences each year, it’s clear that SIPS serves as an important community and catalyst for those eager to help create change in the field. And it’s great to see so many new faces every year – the future of the field is looking bright.

Brian Nosek (Co-Founder)

Improving culture is a collective action problem. No one can change a culture on their own. This results in feeling disempowered and alienated when a culture is misaligned with our ideals. SIPS is a solution to the collective action problem. SIPS has provided a venue for people who want to improve the research culture to gather, debate what improvements are needed, experiment with new approaches, evaluate whether they could work, and disseminate them to the research community. Of course, the ultimate objective is to benefit the research community, but I am most grateful for the benefits that SIPS has provided to me personally — a sense of belonging, community spirit, and empowerment.

Katie Corker (President 2018, current Financial Officer)

I’ve felt very fortunate to support SIPS’ work and growth over these past 10 years. It’s quite humbling to step back and look at all that we have done and built as a community. SIPS’ action orientation is still the thing that best distinguishes it from other initiatives. Many people have stepped up to put in the work that is needed to realize the changes we’re advocating for. I don’t take that work for granted.

Sanjay Srivastava (President 2019)

For many of us, the early days of the open science movement were like a big social referencing experiment. For a long time, you would see a result that is too clean or too surprising, but you’d look around and nobody is reacting. So you would talk yourself into thinking it is normal and believable. All of a sudden that shifted – you could turn to someone and say, “Did I just see what I think I just saw?” And there was someone saying “Yeah, I saw it too.”

Social media was a big reason for that. There were a handful of blogs where you could find those other people in the comment section. Then researchers started finding Twitter and connecting on it. So maybe you were the only person in your department wondering what was going on – but now you could find your people.

But like everything else, social media is a mix of good and bad. There are limits to building a community on an open social media network – you cannot keep out the deniers, trolls, and assholes. And social media is great for talking, but to turn that talk into action, you need more.

SIPS was founded to solve both of those problems. By design, it was an inclusive community focused on action. The initial vision came from Simine and Brian. But they did something very wise – they built it from the ground up to be driven by the community. The innovative conference format, the power-sharing governance structure, all were designed with that in mind.

Those first SIPS conferences were pivotal experiences for me and, I suspect, for many others. There was lots of “hey I know you from Twitter.” But on a deeper level, people who had experienced isolation and hostility from colleagues suddenly had a community that would support them, that would get excited about their ideas, and that would pitch in and get to work side-by-side with them.

One of my interests in those early days was on using SIPS to make science open to, and inclusive of, more people. I organized diversity hackathons at several early conferences, and when I got into governance, I helped write the first Code of Conduct (SIPS was the first scholarly society in psychology I knew about that had one) – and then, after a term as President where I had to enforce it, wrote a major revision drawing on lessons learned. I was never alone in this work – there was lots of energy among society members. It was sometimes difficult work. But it was also rewarding to see tangible outcomes and real progress.

I have been less directly involved in SIPS the past few years, first because of a personal decision to reduce travel, and then a career change to industry. But the work I did on open science, including SIPS, is some of the most important to me in my career so far. I am excited to see SIPS continue to thrive and spread its reach around the world.

Alexa Tullett (President 2020)

I’m extremely proud to have been associated with SIPS in these early years of what I hope will be a long existence. For me, SIPS has been an example of what can happen when you build a scientific community from the ground up, constantly challenging our ideas about what that is supposed to look like. If an unconference is a conference that up-ends the basic assumptions of the form, then SIPS must be an unsociety. As SIPS enters its second decade, I look forward to all the news ways that SIPS members will break my brain and expand my imagination.

Heather Urry (President 2021)

SIPS has been foundational to my continuing development as a mid-to-late career scientist; I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to learn through SIPS events and members how to increase the transparency and credibility of my research. From my vantage point as a former member of the Executive Committee, SIPS has done a great job building a community of people willing to share their expertise, making SIPS spaces safe and inclusive, and making funding available to support its mission. A challenge for SIPS moving forward is how to navigate its own mid-career stage of development now that open science practices are more common. We must continue to evolve and innovate ways to foster inclusion, transparency, and credibility for scientists with a wide range of scientific approaches and sensibilities without leaving anyone behind. Let’s do this!

Morton Gernsbacher (President 2022)

I was delighted to serve as President of SIPS in 2022. In addition to serving our core values and hosting an exciting conference, we awarded nine SIPS Travel Awards of $2000 each, four SIPS Grants in Aid that combined for a total payout of $5000, and awarded the inaugural SIPS-Collabra Registered Report Funding, which, along with the SIPS Grants In Aid, were instigated by my amazing predecessor, Heather Urry, who served as SIPS President in 2021 and who creatively moved SIPS forward in marvelous ways. One aspect of serving SIPS as President, as well as other committee roles, that inspired me was demonstrating that not all the old guard (e.g., folks like me who earned their PhD over forty years ago) are resistant to improving psychological science!

Crystal Steltenpohl (President 2023)

SIPS has provided me so many opportunities to meet scholars who approach knowledge discovery differently than how I was taught. I am constantly in awe of the dedication, intelligence, and kindness of this community as we work together to improve psychological science. Going forward, I hope we can remain dedicated to the idea of continuous improvement and to resist the urge to become dogmatic, to resist the urge to get too locked in any singular path forward. We benefit so much from the diversity of perspectives and approaches that are present in our community, and I hope we keep fostering an environment where we learn from each other.

Clare Conry-Murray (President 2024)

Here are a few sentences on what we achieved during my presidency (23-24) and my thoughts on SIPS. We held our first conference on the continent of Africa in Nairobi, Kenya and it was a great success. I’m happy to see that we continue to connect with the people who attended, since we have a new EC board member from Nairobi: Catherine Karanja. We made an effort to make SIPS procedures more well-documented and transparent. SIPS continues to influence how I do my job, and how I interact in the world. SIPS does not accept the status quo. SIPS teaches us to think about our most important values and consider how to best enact those values–even if it means challenging conventional practices. I hope to do the same in all my endeavors.

Priya Silverstein (President 2025)

From attending my first SIPS in 2019 in Rotterdam to becoming President in 2024, it has been great to see SIPS evolve over this time. Of particular note, we have seen diversity and inclusion in psychology be an increasingly large portion of the programming, which I am very happy about. I look forward to continuing to serve the SIPS community this year! I met my boyfriend (soon to be husband) at [online!] SIPS 2022!  I have also made loads of friends and colleagues through SIPS, and have joined and led several successful collaborations through hackathons. Very grateful for what SIPS has given me and excited to give back through my presidency!

Lisa Spitzer

Attending my first SIPS in Rotterdam was actually one of my main motivators to start a PhD! I really really wanted to contribute to the open science movement, and I am super happy that I was able to focus on a metascience PhD project at @zpid.bsky.social ❤️

Jade Pickering

Been attending SIPS since 2019! I’ve met so many amazing people and been involved in loads of projects I wouldn’t have otherwise. It really helped me during my PhD and postdocs, and SIPS still supports my passion of improving psychological science from an academic-adjacent role ❤

Jay Patel

Well, SIPS 2018 convinced me to take up metascience projects in my spare time and switch my focus to it full-time. It was life-changing, especially 2 years after attending a Nosek talk at my university.

Pam Davis-Kean

I have had multiple papers come out of SIPS meetings as well as good conversations on how to increase the rigor of psych science. Dev Psych and researchers that used observational studies were a small group. So I have dropped my attendance because I have felt less connected. However, I often reference SIPS as the type of conference I like-because you generate new ideas and products for the community.

Daniel Moriarity

Loved having a model of a society driven by an inspirationally broad meta-mission + getting the chance to connect and increase my awareness of scholars from across disciplines and the world who share the goal of improving psychological science.

The Future of SIPS

Much has been achieved over the last decade but much remains to be done. The word cloud and reflections above reflect that fact with many references to moving forward.  At the end of 2024 we brought together a group of prominent early reformers to discuss lessons from our first decade with an eye to the future. If you weren’t able to attend that online event we encourage you to watch the recording here.

Finally, we encourage everyone to come to SIPS 2025: either in-person in Budapest, Hungary, June 25-27, or online May 21-22. We hope to see many of you at either or both events and wish you well for a happy, safe, productive year!

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Conferences

Further Info on SIPS 2025 Location

Dear SIPS Members,

We recently became aware of a public statement from one of our members, expressing their decision not to attend the 2025 SIPS conference in Budapest due to concerns about the political and social climate, particularly regarding LGBTQIA+ rights in Hungary. We want to acknowledge these concerns (which have also been raised by some other members) and take this opportunity to explain the rationale behind our decision to hold the conference in Budapest.

Choosing a conference location is always complex, and no single location is free from challenges. When choosing a conference location, we strive to make SIPS accessible, inclusive, and safe for all members, but different locations inevitably pose different barriers. These include political and social conditions, visa requirements, and financial accessibility. When deciding on Budapest, we weighed several factors, including the excellent local organizing team and the opportunity to host the conference outside of North America and Western Europe, making the conference more accessible to our many members in the Eastern hemisphere. One of the main recommendations from the 2021 SIPS Global Engagement Task Force Report was that the in-person portion of SIPS should be held in geographically diverse regions (especially those outside of North America and Western Europe), to increase the diversity of conference attendees and better support underrepresented minorities.

We are aware of the 2021 legislation banning “homosexual and transexual propaganda” in Hungary. Two issues that one may have with the SIPS conference being held in Budapest under these conditions are: 1. Perceived SIPS endorsement of this legislation, and 2. Safety for LGBTQIA+ travelers. 

On the first point, SIPS does not endorse this legislation. SIPS serves scholars around the world who strive to improve psychological science. These scholars are located in countries with varying laws, many of which do not match SIPS’ values. Many Eastern European LGBTQIA+ scholars would be further isolated if we refused to hold the conference in Hungary.

On the second point, the LGBTQIA+ travel advice for Hungary (from the UK, as an example) includes that “Budapest is generally tolerant and open.” The hosting institute welcomes our LGBTQIA+ members with full support. We hope that everyone will enjoy the event and leave it with a positive experience. To this end, the conference committee has enlisted the help of an LGBTQIA+ consultant, who is Hungary’s national Pride fest organizer. The conference committee will provide guidance on the conference page based on advice from this consultant.

We know that no location is perfect for everyone, which is one of the reasons we have made sure to hold an online portion of the conference every year, and have been testing different formats for this so we can best serve our members. We strive to ensure that our members’ voices are heard, and we are committed to learning from this experience and improving our processes. SIPS offers many opportunities for members to share their thoughts and be involved in society decisions, through sessions at our conferences (e.g. “The Future of SIPS”) and committees that members can join (e.g. the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access Committee”). In addition to this, we are also always open to hearing your thoughts via email – please email us at sips@improvingpsych.org.

Finally, we want to emphasize that SIPS will continue to prioritize inclusivity, openness, and diversity. We understand that some members may choose not to attend certain conferences due to personal or ethical concerns. We respect these decisions and will use them as an opportunity to reflect on how we can make SIPS better. We appreciate our members’ engagement and feedback as we continue to strive for an inclusive and welcoming community. 

Sincerely,

SIPS

Categories
General

2023 Call for Proposals for Grants-In-Aid to Reduce Barriers to Improving Psychological Science

The Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science is pleased to announce we are accepting proposals for another round of grants-in-aid to reduce barriers to improving psychological science. These grants are aimed at supporting projects that will improve access, collaboration, inclusion, networking, outreach, and/or education within the field of psychology.

For the purposes of these grants, we define projects broadly. Examples of projects in alphabetical order include (but are not limited to) educational resources, interactive media, preconferences, small in-person gatherings to complement online conferences, social networks, software, tutorials, webinars, and workshops. Applicants should, however, feel free to submit projects not captured in these examples or propose to build on existing projects.

Read more about the grants-in-aid and how to apply. Applications are due January 15, 2023. If you have any questions about this program, please email sips@improvingpsych.org..

The grants-in-aid and other financial programs are made possible through SIPS memberships and generous donations from SIPS members and supporters. If you are interested in supporting this and other initiatives, please join SIPS or consider donating to one of our funds. SIPS membership waivers are available for those who would like to be involved with the organization and need financial assistance.

Categories
Conferences

SIPS 2022 Program Now Live

The program for the SIPS 2022 conference is live*! 

We hope you’ll join us, either in-person or online, for a dynamic agenda of workshops, hackathons, and unconference sessions. There’s still time to register at the regular rate! Click here to start. Modality swaps are allowed through May 28, and virtual registration ends June 19.

This year SIPS is going hybrid! That means that most of the conference attendees will participate remotely via Zoom, but some will join from the conference center in Victoria, BC, Canada. The landing pages for each session will confirm the ability of remote participants to join onsite sessions.

Want to present a lightning talk or pre-data poster, or organize a roundtable session? Submit your proposal on or before June 13, 2022.

We look forward to seeing you at #SIPS2022.

Best,

Jennifer Gutsell, Julia Strand, and Balazs Aczel

SIPS 2022 Program Committee

*Please note that the schedule may still change slightly due to corrections.

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Collabra Funding General

Call for Proposals: SIPS-Collabra Registered Report Funding Partnership

The Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS) and the journal, Collabra: Psychology, together invite researchers to propose empirical research projects that will be considered in parallel for research funding by SIPS and a publication decision by Collabra: Psychology. 

With this registered report funding partnership (RRFP), we seek to encourage empirical research that 1) addresses questions in hard-to-reach populations or otherwise seeks to maximize generalizability, and 2) reflects rigorous, inclusive psychological science that is open and reported transparently regardless of results. 

Proposals will be formatted as a stage 1 registered report, described below. All topics and approaches that fit the aims and scope of Collabra: Psychology are welcome. Although the registered report article format was optimized for confirmatory research, we welcome quantitative, qualitative, confirmatory, exploratory, and computational modeling approaches. 

REGISTERED REPORT FORMAT

As noted by the Center for Open Science, “Registered Reports are a form of empirical journal article in which methods and proposed analyses are pre-registered and peer-reviewed prior to research being conducted. High quality protocols are then provisionally accepted for publication before data collection commences. This format of article… eliminates a variety of questionable research practices, including low statistical power, selective reporting of results, and publication bias, while allowing complete flexibility to conduct exploratory (unregistered) analyses and report serendipitous findings.”

A stage 1 registered report (RR) contains an introduction, method section, and (optionally) any pilot data. The introduction sets the context for key research questions with reference to supporting literature and explains how the proposed research will advance our understanding of hard-to-reach populations or maximize generalizability. The method section describes the design, subjects  (if applicable), materials, procedure, and analysis plan. Analysis of pilot data can be presented to substantiate aspects of the proposed research.

RRFP PROCESS IN BRIEF

Researchers responding to this call for proposals will describe their proposed research in a stage 1 RR manuscript. For detailed instructions about writing a stage 1 RR, see pages 3-6 of the Collabra: Psychology Registered Reports detailed guidelines. See also Collabra’s tips for avoiding desk rejection at stage 1 on pages 8-10. 

When the stage 1 RR is ready, the lead contributor will submit the stage 1 RR to Collabra: Psychology by the deadline. SIPS and Collabra: Psychology will independently evaluate the proposed research in parallel. 

SIPS will make funding decisions; possible outcomes include denial or approval of funding. Collabra: Psychology will make publication decisions; possible outcomes include rejection, invitation to revise, or in-principle acceptance. In-principle acceptance means “the article will be published pending successful completion of the study according to the exact methods and analytic procedures outlined, as well as a defensible and evidence-bound interpretation of the results” (p. 5 of the guidelines). 

Funding and publication decisions will be based on a commitment to support research that prioritizes addressing questions in hard-to-reach populations or otherwise seeks to maximize generalizability and research that is rigorously and transparently conducted, statistically sound, adequately powered, fairly analyzed, and worthy of inclusion in the scholarly record. 

Funding is not contingent on achieving in-principle acceptance at Collabra: Psychology.

Pending satisfaction of conditions described under Award Information below, SIPS will award funds to lead contributors who were granted funding regardless of the outcome at Collabra: Psychology. 

ELIGIBILITY

Contributors at any stage of their career at any type of institution are eligible to apply. 

The lead contributor must be a member of SIPS and may request a dues waiver if financial assistance is needed to join. Lead contributors may submit only one application per deadline. Collabra: Psychology’s Editor-in-chief, Collabra: Psychology’s Senior Editors, and members of the SIPS Executive Committee are ineligible to be lead contributors.

We encourage and will give preference to projects led by scholars with one or more of the following characteristics: scholars who are members of one or more groups that are underrepresented in psychological science, scholars in training (e.g., students, postdocs), scholars who earned their doctoral degree within the last seven years, scholars working in circumstances where research is challenging or support is limited, and scholars outside Canada, Europe, and USA.

AWARD INFORMATION

Contributors may request up to $2,500 USD. SIPS intends to commit $5,000 USD total across 2-10 awards. In addition, if the lead contributor does not have access to funds for the article processing charge through their institution, they may request a waiver from Collabra: Psychology. 

Funds may not be used for salary support for personnel or indirect costs to institutions. Funds may be used to cover a stipend for consultants necessary to conduct the research (e.g., undergraduate or graduate research assistance).

Release of SIPS funds to the lead contributor is contingent on the following conditions:

  1. The lead contributor must submit the decision letter from Collabra: Psychology to SIPS. 
  2. The lead contributor must commit to carrying out the proposed research. If contributors no longer plan to conduct the research, they should decline the SIPS award.
  3. For stage 1 RRs involving research with human or animal subjects, the lead contributor must submit documentation of approval or exemption from their institutional review board / ethics committee / animal care and use committee to SIPS. (Some research may require approval or exemption by regulatory bodies at other contributors’ institutions. The research cannot proceed until all approvals or exemptions are in place.) 
  4. If Collabra: Psychology rejects the stage 1 RR, the lead contributor must preregister their final stage 1 RR on the Open Science Framework or post a preprint on PsyArXiv and submit the URL to SIPS prior to commencing data collection for the project.

APPLICATION TIMELINE

The application process will combine funding review by SIPS with peer review by Collabra: Psychology. The deadline to submit the stage 1 RR is 1 August 2022. The process will unfold on the following timeline:

1 March 2022

SIPS will announce its registered report funding partnership with Collabra: Psychology
1 August 2022

Contributors will submit a stage 1 RR to Collabra: Psychology. (Submission link below.)  The stage 1 RR should present an introduction, method, analysis plan, and results of any pilot studies, if applicable. It should adhere to Collabra: Psychology’s editorial policies. When submitting to Collabra: Psychology, authors should include a cover letter indicating that the stage 1 RR is being submitted for consideration via the SIPS-Collabra Registered Report Funding Partnership. 
~August to October 2022

Collabra: Psychology will review the stage 1 manuscript and relay word to the lead contributor. Possible outcomes include rejection, invitation to revise, or in-principle acceptance. In parallel, SIPS will make in-principle funding decisions after removal of contributor information from proposals and relay word to the lead contributor. Possible outcomes include denial or conditional approval of funding.
November 2022 and beyond

Assuming funding conditions are met, SIPS will release funds to the lead contributor of stage 1 RRs that receive a decision from Collabra: Psychology, whatever the outcome. This ends SIPS involvement in the partnership. Contributors will then conduct the research and write the stage 2 RR. The stage 2 RR should present the introduction, method, results, and discussion after data collection and analysis. Contributors submit their stage 2 RR with a cover letter to Collabra: Psychology written according to journal guidelines. Possible outcomes include rejection, invitation to revise, or acceptance for publication by the journal. 

HOW TO APPLY

  1. Write a stage 1 RR that includes the following sections:
  • A title page (page 1) showing the title, names and affiliations of all contributors. 
  • An abstract (page 2) summarizing the research.
  • An introduction that sets the context for key research questions with reference to supporting literature. If applicable, explain how the proposed research will advance our understanding of hard-to-reach populations or maximize generalizability.  
  • A method section that describes the design, subjects (if applicable), materials, procedure, and analysis plan. 
  • A references section for works cited in the proposal; these do not contribute to the word limit.
  1. The lead contributor should submit the stage 1 RR to Collabra: Psychology by 1 August 2022. Submit here.
  2. List the lead contributor as the corresponding author. 
  3. Indicate in the cover letter that the stage 1 RR should be considered via the SIPS-Collabra Registered Report Funding Partnership. 
  4. When prompted by the editorial staff at Collabra: Psychology, complete the two required submission questionnaires. One has journal-required fields; the other has the SIPS-required fields noted at the bottom of this call for proposals.

QUESTIONS AND SPONSORSHIP

Questions? Please email sips@improvingpsych.org.

Sponsored by: SIPS membership dues and donations, and Collabra: Psychology via waiver of the article processing charge for some contributors at the journal’s discretion

SIPS-COLLABRA RRFP SUBMISSION QUESTIONNAIRE FIELDS

1. Please provide the names and role(s) of all contributors to the research. For roles, please succinctly describe what each contributor will do in service of the project; if applicable, consider using the Contributor Roles Taxonomy:

2. Lead Contributor’s Last/Family Name:

3. Lead Contributor’s First/Given Name:

4. Lead Contributor’s Institution:

5. Lead Contributor’s Email address:

6. Title of the manuscript submitted to Collabra: Psychology:

7. Which of the following describes the lead contributor? (Select all that apply):

  • SIPS member (required)
  • Agrees to share stage 1 RR publicly if funded (required)
  • Scholar who is a member of a group that is underrepresented in psychological science
  • Scholar in training position (e.g., student, postdoc)
  • Scholar who earned their doctoral degree within the last seven years
  • Scholar working in circumstances where research is challenging or support is limited
  • Scholar living and working outside Canada, Europe, and USA

8. Which of the following describes the proposed research? (Select all that apply):

  • Addresses questions in hard-to-reach populations
  • Seeks to maximize generalizability

9. Does the project involve human or animal subjects? (yes/no)

10. Provide a timeline for research activities, and a budget covering up to $2,500 USD in research expenses. The budget may not include salary support for personnel or indirect costs to institutions. The budget may include a stipend for consultants necessary to conduct the research (e.g., undergraduate or graduate research assistance):

Categories
Conferences General

Call for Proposals: SIPS 2024 Conference Hosting


Call for Proposals to Host the 2024 SIPS Conference

The Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS) is excited to issue a call for proposals to host its annual conference in 2024. We are particularly interested in receiving proposals for conference locations outside Canada, Western Europe, and the United States. 

Background

To date, SIPS has planned its annual conferences exclusively in Canada, Western Europe, and the United States (see table below). As noted in the Global Engagement Task Force Report commissioned by SIPS, “When major conferences are held in only one or two geographic regions, less financially secure scholars are systematically excluded, which limits the exposure of their perspectives to an international community” (Steltenpohl et al., 2021, p. 8). The authors of the task force therefore recommended that “SIPS hold the annual conference in geographically diverse regions, including those traditionally labeled as ‘Global South,’ ‘Low and Middle Income Countries.’” Doing so will enable contributions by all international stakeholders, which will in turn allow us to generate the best ideas for how to improve psychological science. 

YearLocation# Registered
2016Charlottesville, VA, USA~100
2017Charlottesville, VA, USA~200
2018Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA271
2019Rotterdam, the Netherlands521
2020Remote/online1197
2021Remote/online1012
2022Victoria, BC, CanadaTBD
2023Padova, ItalyTBD
SIPS Conference Sites

The Proposal

Brief proposals for hosting the 2024 SIPS Conference should focus mostly on logistics such as where the conference events would take place (hotel/institution and in what city and country) and roughly how much it would cost, whether the site has sufficient space to accommodate typical conference sessions, accessibility of the nearest airport, and accessibility of affordable lodging and meals. (To get a sense of typical conference sessions, please refer to programs from past conferences, available here.)

SIPS conferences are financed by SIPS in large part through registration fees, sponsorships, and donations; therefore, proposals for hosting the conference do not need to consider how the conference will be funded. That said, hosts are welcome to note sources of funding they could contribute or obtain to defray the costs of the conference. Similarly, the scientific program for SIPS conferences is coordinated by a program committee that works together with the logistics committee to plan the conference. The program committee evaluates submissions and creates the schedule of events. Therefore, proposals for hosting and handling the logistics of the conference do not need to address the scientific program. 

Evaluation

The table below lists the criteria that proposals should address and how they will be evaluated. 

CriteriaInformation about this criterion is scarce or not applicable.This criterion is partially met.This criteria iscompletely met.
Host Characteristics
The conference is hosted by an individual or group committed to SIPS and improving psychological science in general.
The host(s) have previous experience with this kind of event or have demonstrated skills that are relevant to doing so.
Conference Site
The conference site facilities are adequate for ~500 participants and typical conference session activities (universities or similar are preferred due to cost effectiveness).
The site has spaces that facilitate networking and informal exchange among participants.
The site is close to eateries, lodging, and transportation venues.
Approximate cost to reserve the site
Advantages & Limitations
The proposal addresses potential advantages of the conference location (e.g. accessibility, funding sources that can be applied for, local SIPS or similar communities in the area) 
The proposal addresses potential limitations of the conference location (e.g., laws or local ordinances that target marginalized members of the SIPS community, potential travel/visa restrictions)
Financial, Travel, and Timing Considerations
The proposed costs are acceptable.
The proposal specifies the nearest airport and its distance to the conference site
The date proposed for the event is appropriate; it should occur in June or before.
Are the organizers interested in hosting the SIPS conference in a subsequent year if the proposal is not selected for 2024? (the answer to this question has no bearing on 2024 selection)YesNo
Criteria for Evaluating SIPS 2024 Conference Hosting Proposals

Submission

Upload a single pdf of the proposal to the survey linked here by 1 May 2022. Complete proposals will be reviewed by the SIPS Executive Committee based on the criteria noted above. There is no formal word/page minimum or maximum but proposals are meant to be brief.

Please direct any questions to sips@improvingpsych.org. We are excited to discuss your ideas for a proposal prior to submission; feel free to request a conversation before investing effort in your proposal. Similarly, the EC reserves the right to request a conference call with potential hosts to address questions about their proposal before making a decision.

Categories
General

Call for Proposals: Grants-In-Aid to Reduce Barriers to Improving Psychological Science

The Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS) wants to provide a mechanism for its members to advance the SIPS Mission outside the confines of the annual conference. To that end, we are delighted to announce the availability of grants-in-aid for projects that will reduce barriers to improving psychological science.

We define projects broadly. Examples of projects in alphabetical order include (but are not limited to) educational resources, interactive media, preconferences, small in-person gatherings to complement online conferences, social networks, software, tutorials, webinars, and workshops. Applicants should, however, feel free to submit projects not captured in these examples or propose to build on existing projects.

ELIGIBILITY

Contributors at any stage of their career at any type of institution are eligible to apply. The lead contributor must be a member of SIPS and may request a dues waiver if financial assistance is needed to join. Lead contributors may submit only one application per deadline. Members of the SIPS Executive Committee are ineligible to be contributors. 

We encourage and will give preference to projects led by scholars with one or more of the following characteristics: scholars who are members of one or more groups that are underrepresented in psychological science, scholars in training (e.g., students, postdocs), scholars who earned their doctoral degree within the last seven years, scholars working in circumstances where research is challenging or support is limited, and scholars outside Canada, Europe, and USA.

AWARD INFORMATION

Contributors may request up to $2,500 USD. SIPS intends to commit $5,000 USD total across 2-10 awards. 

Funding requires open sharing of the grant application and grant output for awarded projects. Contributors may apply a license to the application and output, if desired.

Funding for proposals involving research with human or animal subjects will only be released after receiving documentation of approval or exemption from the lead contributor’s institutional review board / ethics committee / animal care and use committee. Some research may require approval or exemption by regulatory bodies at other contributors’ institutions. The research cannot proceed until all approvals or exemptions are in place.

Funds may not be used as salary support for personnel or indirect costs (i.e., overhead) to institutions. Funds may be used to cover a stipend for consultants necessary to conduct the project (e.g., undergraduate or graduate project assistance).

HOW TO APPLY

Submit your proposal here. The proposal includes the following fields:

Please provide the names and role(s) of all contributors to the project. For roles, please succinctly describe what each contributor will do in service of the project; if applicable, consider using the Contributor Roles Taxonomy:

To be eligible for a grant-in-aid, the lead contributor must be a SIPS member who agrees to share the grant application and grant output publicly if funded. 

The lead contributor assumes primary responsibility for submitting the proposal and corresponding with SIPS as needed about the proposal. If the grant-in-aid is awarded, the lead contributor assumes responsibility for receiving the funds and carrying out the project.

If you are not a SIPS member, please join before proceeding further with this application by clicking here. If financial assistance is needed, you may request a dues waiver here before joining.

Lead Contributor’s Last/Family Name:

Lead Contributor’s First/Given Name:

Lead Contributor’s Institution:

Lead Contributor’s Email Address:

Which of the following describes the lead contributor? (Select all that apply):

  • SIPS member
  • Agrees to assume primary responsibility for submitting the proposal and corresponding with SIPS as needed about the proposal
  • Agrees to receive the funds and carry out the project if funds are awarded
  • Agrees to share grant application publicly if funded
  • Agrees to share grant output publicly if funded
  • Scholar who is a member of a group that is underrepresented in psychological science
  • Scholar in training position (e.g., student, postdoc)
  • Scholar who earned their doctoral degree within the last seven years 
  • Scholar working in circumstances where research is challenging or support is limited
  • Scholar living and working outside Canada, Europe, and USA

Title of the project:

Abstract summarizing the project in up to 480 characters (~80 words):

Does the project involve human or animal subjects? (yes/no)

A proposal addressing the following:

  • Describe the project with supporting literature (up to 3600 characters, which is ~600 words; character limit includes in-text citations). The strongest proposals will articulate a rough timeline and the product(s) to be generated upon completion.
  • Explain how the project reduces a barrier to improving psychological science. If proposing to build on an existing project, explain how the proposed project will advance the work. (up to 1200 characters, which is ~200 words)
  • Provide a budget of up to $2,500 USD. The budget may not include salary support for personnel or indirect costs to institutions. The budget may include a stipend for consultants necessary to conduct the project (e.g., undergraduate or graduate project assistance). (up to 1200 characters, which is ~200 words)
  • Provide full references for works cited in proposal (no maximum character count):

DEADLINE

Submit your proposal by 15 January 2022. You will receive a copy of your responses at the email address you provide as confirmation of submission. We anticipate notifying lead contributors about the outcome of their request for funding on or near 15 March 2022. 

Questions? Please email sips@improvingpsych.org.

Sponsored by: SIPS membership dues and donations

This call for proposals is an adapted version of SPSSI’s Grants-in-Aid Program.

Categories
Conferences General

Diversity Re-Hack at SIPS 2021

Kimberly Quinn

Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) Committee

Following the SIPS 2021 virtual conference, session leaders were invited to respond to a survey to reflect on their diversity and inclusiveness practices.

They were prompted to consider diversity in a number of ways:

  1. Identity-based forms of diversity (e.g., gender expression, sexuality, race and ethnicity, neurodiversity)
  2. Geographic diversity (researcher location, culture)
  3. Career-stage diversity (academic: undergraduate students, (post)graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, tenure-track faculty, tenured faculty; non-academic: probationary/temporary versus permanent)
  4. Institutional diversity (high schools, two-year / community colleges, undergraduate institutions, Masters-granting institutions, PhD-granting institutions, nonacademic organizations)
  5. Resource diversity (institutional support and infrastructure, money, time)

Of the 55 session leaders contacted, 28 (51%) responded to the survey. Eight of the 55 sessions were explicitly diversity-focused (and four leaders of diversity-focused sessions responded to the survey), whereas the remaining 47 sessions were not (and 24 of these session leaders responded to the survey).

Session leaders replied to five questions. Key themes in their responses are summarized below (along with my own reflections and/or recommendations, where applicable).

Note that I sometimes distinguish between inclusion and access. I refer to inclusion as people’s real or perceived sense of being recognized and respected in their identities, and access as people’s opportunities to obtain and make use of knowledge or resources.

What did you do to foster diversity and inclusion in this session?

Session leaders reported working toward both access and inclusion. 

Inclusion-directed activities included the following:

  • Highlighting session leader diversity
  • Acknowledging session leader positionality (including epistemic positionality, e.g., positivist versus constructivist views on knowing)
  • Creating welcoming spaces (e.g., encouraging personal introductions, welcoming and teaching attendees how to share their pronouns on the virtual platforms)
  • Creating accessible and inclusive spaces (e.g., using small breakout rooms to give more  attendees the opportunity to participate, allowing the use of text-based chat in addition to or instead of speaking, enabling asynchronous contributions via shared documents)
  • Being attentive to disability and neurodivergence (e.g., using live captioning, recording sessions when the content or contributions were not private, using colorblind-friendly colors in materials, making materials available offline, providing preparation materials in advance)
  • Being attentive to identity-related issues in the presentation of session materials (e.g., acknowledging that gender-dichotomized data in a demonstration data set did not reflect expansive definitions of gender)

Access-directed activities included the following:

  • Being attentive to resource diversity (e.g., relying exclusively on open-source software)
  • Being attentive to knowledge diversity (e.g., conducting pre-session surveys to gauge knowledge, sharing background papers in advance, overviewing introductory concepts at start of session)
  • Advertising in advance (e.g., via Twitter) to attract broader attendance

One comment stood out for highlighting a potential topic for future discussion. A session leader noted that they had devoted a lot of attention to career-stage diversity and power structures while also neglecting identity-based diversity and power structures. In my mind, this comment serves as an implicit call for intersectionality as a topic of discussion. All of our various identities—based on race, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability status, but also on less conventionally considered variables such as career stage, institutional type, and so on—have the potential to combine in ways that create different forms of privilege versus exclusion. We have an opportunity, and perhaps even an obligation, to consider how identities that impact inclusion and identities that impact access might interact in ways that are particularly detrimental to the scientific community by virtue of who they exclude from scientific activity and discourse.

Who will benefit from the knowledge disseminated / materials developed in the session?

Sessions leaders generally responded that beneficiaries would be sessions attendees and anyone interested in the knowledge and/or skills targeted in the session. They referred primarily to researchers, instructors, and students as those who would benefit. One notable exception was a reflection that had a “hidden curriculum” flavor to it, noting that early-career researchers, scholars in the Global South, and scholars at smaller and/or teaching-focused institutions might be particularly likely to benefit.

Reflecting on the similarity of responses to this question highlighted for me that the question was likely unclear. It might be interesting for session leaders to consider who would likely be interested in the session content and/or outputs. Would the ideas, methods, etc. appeal to all researchers, instructors, and/or students in the relevant domain? In so doing, session leaders might also consider defining who they include in each of these stakeholder categories and identifying groups or individuals who would likely not be interested in the session content and/or outputs. Should efforts be made to reach, appeal to, and serve these groups or individuals? If so, how?

Who might be left out, overlooked, or otherwise less able to benefit?

Session leaders again tended to focus on whether conference attendees were able to attend their sessions, reflecting on geographic diversity and session timing, attendee language barriers, and so on. There were some reflections on whether cultural norms and values might constrain the relevance of session content or prevent full engagement and open discussion. Another response reflected on the largely online nature of SIPS (with its virtual conference and the generally high engagement of SIPS-oriented scholars on Twitter). 

There were also a few reflections on the time, resource, or financial burden of adopting advocated practices. This kind of reflection might be useful for future consideration. Focusing less on sessions themselves and more on the products and practices that result from these sessions, session leaders might benefit from asking who has the ability and desire to use them. Perhaps more importantly, who doesn’t use the products and practices, and why? Should efforts be made to adapt products and practices to these people? If so, how?

What can you (as session organizer) and/or SIPS do to expand who can benefit? What can you (as session organizer) and/or SIPS do to address barriers?

Note. These questions were asked separately, simply to provide respondents with different ways to frame the issue. Responses to the two questions (unsurprisingly) mirrored each other, so the summaries have been combined here.

My summary for these questions is brief, because most of the responses recapitulate what we’ve heard before when asking about how to improve access and inclusion: a need to consolidate all of the outputs from SIPS efforts over the years to prevent redundancy and make identification of and access to information easier; a need to translate materials into multiple languages to address language diversity; a call for consistent automatic captioning of videos to address both language barriers and disability; and a desire to maintain the virtual conference format (or at least adopt a hybrid format) to address geographic and financial diversity. 

Responses also echoed past discussions calling for efforts to integrate epistemic diversity (i.e., diversity in approaches to “knowing,” such as positivism versus constructivism) into replicable science discussions and practices and for SIPS to publicly address and acknowledge the  colonial and imperial histories in psychology and their ongoing impact.

Finally, one respondent acknowledged not knowing how to better foster inclusiveness in a session focused on a specific methodological issue, and this resonates with me as someone who teaches quantitative research design (acknowledging its particular positivist standpoint). When I first considered whether my own pedagogy supported diversity and inclusion, I thought my mandate was to think about how I presented issues of race, gender, and the like, and to ensure that the research I highlighted included female, Black, Indigenous, People of Color, or LGBTQI+ authors, and I know from conversations with others that I was not alone in this understanding. I struggled with this in the context of research methods teaching because so many of the classic readings and even much contemporary work comes from White men. It took me a while to realize that fostering diversity and inclusion was also about my audience (i.e., my students). The issues aren’t just about the materials we present (i.e., whether we promote work from minoritized scholars) and the activities we ask people to engage in (e.g., whether we talk about race), but also how we do that. How do we engage everyone in our audience—students in our classes or participants in our SIPS sessions—and ensure that they feel valued and included?

This respondent recommended that SIPS provide training or tips to foster inclusion. My hope is that future session leaders can look to the examples described above as a starting point, and that SIPS takes up this recommendation.

A closing reflection

As noted above, session leaders were encouraged to consider diversity in terms of identity, geography, career stage, institution type, and resource availability. My sense is that the community’s discussions in recent years have done much to promote the first three types of diversity, but much less the last two. To be clear, we still have much to do on every dimension. However, until we seriously consider the constraints imposed by limited time, support, and infrastructure and how these constraints shape research practice, we will have limited success in our mission to improve psychological science.

Categories
Conferences

SIPS 2021 Program Now Live

The program for the SIPS 2021 conference is live! 

We hope you’ll join us for a dynamic agenda of workshops, hackathons, and unconference sessions. There’s still time to register at the early rate! Click here to start. (Early registration will be available through May 15, 2021.)

Want to present a lightning talk or pre-data poster, or organize a roundtable session? Submit your proposal on or before June 9, 2021.

SIPS 2021 Conference website: https://improvingpsych.org/SIPS2021

Categories
General

Global Engagement Task Force Report

The SIPS Global Engagement Task Force has finished their report on issues affecting inclusion and access of scholars from regions outside the US, Canada, and Western Europe. It includes suggestions for reaching, including, and supporting these scholars, such as working with local open science groups, holding conferences in geographically diverse locations, and improving membership and financial resources.

A pretty version is hosted on PsyArXiv.

The report has been officially published at Collabra: Psychology.