The Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS) is a new effort to promote transparency in empirical social science research. The program is fostering an active network of social science researchers and institutions committed to strengthening scientific integrity in economics, political science, behavioral science, and related disciplines.

Central to the BITSS effort is the identification of useful strategies and tools for maintaining research transparency, including the use of study registries, pre-analysis plans, data sharing, and replication. With its institutuional hub at UC Berkeley, the network facilitates discussion and critique of existing strategies, testing of new methods, and broad dissemination of findings through interdisciplinary convenings, special conference sessions, and online public engagement.

The first opinion series on transparency in social science research (see: http://cegablog.org/transparency-series/) was published on the CEGA Development Blog in March 2013. The series built on a seminal research meeting held at the University of California, Berkeley on December 7, 2012, which brought together a select interdisciplinary group of scholars – from biostatistics, economics, political science and psychology – with a shared interest in promoting transparency in empirical social science research.