Call it a homecoming. Australia it’s where I learned to think like a researcher and to doubt like a scientist. I did my PhD in Perth, at the University of Western Australia, and a piece of my life stayed there – quite literally: a friend still has a small box of my jackets and shirts in his storage room. I left in December 2020 for a short conference trip and then COVID-19 shut down travel. I couldn’t get back – until now.
Last year, my colleague Derek ran a fantastic set of Replication Games in Australia. When the internal call went out asking who wanted to pick it up this year, I volunteered immediately. This isn’t just a work trip; it’s a chance to return to a place I love. This year I’m calling it the Australian & New Zealand Replication Tour – four stops, one purpose: to do better science together.
• Sydney — University of Technology Sydney (UTS): November 13
• Brisbane — The University of Queensland (UQ): November 17
• Melbourne — University of Melbourne: November 26
• Wellington — Victoria University of Wellington (VUW): December 4
Think of the Replication Games as a hands-on, one-day workshop where teams take a recently published study with open data and code and try to reproduce the main results. Along the way we:
• Verify computational reproducibility: Can we rerun the authors’ scripts and match the numbers, figures, and tables?
• Document the process: We log version issues, data quirks, and setup steps—not to shame, but to learn.
• Probe robustness: When possible, we run light, transparent checks (e.g., alternative standard errors or minor specification tweaks).
• Share openly: We emphasize clarity, documentation, and reusability to make tomorrow’s research easier.
It’s part detective work, part craftsmanship. The goal isn’t to “catch” a paper; it’s to strengthen trust in the evidence. Clean replications are wins for everyone. When results wobble, we learn where transparency or design can improve. Either way, the field moves forward. Replication Games aren’t a side quest; they’re a habit-building exercise for open, reliable research. They lower practical barriers to engaging with shared materials, reward good documentation, and normalize the question, “Can we rerun that?” For students and early-career researchers, they demystify the guts of empirical work. For senior scholars, they offer a brisk, constructive check on reproducibility practices. For me, this tour is also personal proof that unfinished chapters can be finished. I left Australia hurriedly in late 2020 and couldn’t return. Now I’m coming, and If the last few years taught us anything, it’s that reliable evidence is a public good—and building it requires shared craft.
So if you’re in Sydney (Nov 13), Brisbane (Nov 17), Melbourne (Nov 26), or Wellington (Dec 4), come join us. Bring your curiosity, your laptop, and your patience for Git. We’ll bring datasets, good company, and the satisfaction of a figure that reproduces line-for-line – or a stubborn error that yields to a clear README. And if, somewhere between robustness checks and coffee breaks, I finally pick up that jacket from my friend’s storage, I’ll count that as an absolute win.
