# Funders set aside a fixed share of budget for independent replication

Source: https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-tr2-replication-set-aside/  
OnCo record `idea-tr2-replication-set-aside` (Idea). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Almost no research money goes to checking whether published cancer findings hold up: one replication project could complete only 23 of 50 planned experiments. Requiring 3 to 5% of every funder's research budget to go to independent replication, published whatever the result, would build the missing feedback loop.

## Summary

The Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology attempted to replicate 50 high-impact papers and could complete only 23 experiments, with effect sizes on average 85% smaller than the originals. No funder has a standing replication budget. A rule that 3 to 5% of a funder's research budget goes to independent replication of findings selected by their translational importance, with results published regardless of direction, would create the missing feedback loop.

## Fields

- Kind: Idea
- Last checked: 2026-09-08
- Hypothesis: Findings that pass funded replication will progress to clinical trials at a higher rate and fail in early clinical development less often than unreplicated findings, justifying the set-aside within five years.
- Rationale: Replication is a public good that no individual lab is rewarded for producing; only funders can pay for it systematically.
- Proposed test: One large funder adopts the set-aside; track replication outcomes and downstream translational success against a matched unreplicated set.
- Maturity: early-clinical
- Actor: philanthropy

## Sources

- Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology: https://www.cos.io/rpcb

## Connected records

- institutions: [Cancer Research UK](https://onco.cc/institutions/cruk/), [National Cancer Institute (NIH)](https://onco.cc/institutions/nci/)
- ideas: [Bounties for documented failed replications of high-impact findings](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-tr2-replication-bounties/), [Count replications and open data in hiring and promotion](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-tr2-tenure-replication-credit/), [Every cancer biology PhD begins with a funded replication of a published finding](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-tr2-phd-replication-year/), [Independent replication of the key experiment before first-in-human academic trials](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-tr2-replication-before-ind/)
- bottlenecks: [Funding follows fashion, not burden](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-funding-allocation/), [Preclinical results do not reproduce](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-reproducibility/)

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