Highlights from the 2026 MAER-Net Colloquium in Chemnitz
by Sebastian Gechert, Jerome Geyer-Klingeberg, Tomas Havranek, Bianka Mey, T.D. Stanley and Mehmet Ugur
The 2026 MAER-Net Colloquium from September 23–25 brought our community to Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany. The meeting began with an introductory workshop on meta-analysis for more than 30 doctoral candidates and advanced master’s students with insightful lectures by Anna Schütze, Bianka Mey, Tomáš Havránek, T.D. Stanley and František Bartoš. We then moved into two intensive days of presentations, discussions, and exchanges by experts in the field.
The scientific program reflected the breadth and continuing development of meta-analysis, meta-research, replications and open science. Anna Dreber Almenberg opened the main program with her keynote “(Predicting) Replications and Generalizability,” while Jan C. Minx presented a keynote on building an AI-enabled, scalable evidence bank for what works in climate policies. Across plenary and parallel sessions, the 53 presentations addressed publication bias and p-hacking, replication and reproducibility, methodological innovations, AI and evidence synthesis, climate policy, growth, inequality, behavioral economics, environmental research, and labor and industrial economics.
A very special moment was the presentation of the MAER-Net Founders’ Medal for Lifelong Contributions to Meta-Science to Anna Dreber Almenberg, recognizing her outstanding contributions to replication research, prediction and the broader credibility of science. The medal recognizes exceptional and sustained contributions to advancing meta-science; previous recipients were John P. A. Ioannidis in 2024 and Abel Brodeur in 2025.
As always, the Colloquium was about more than presentations. A visit to the Chemnitz Museum of Industry, a walk around the Castle Pond, and the conference dinner provided plenty of opportunities to continue discussions and strengthen old and new connections. Our sincere thanks go to Sebastian Gechert and the Chemnitz University’s Chair of Macroeconomics for their hospitality and careful organization. Chemnitz, with its industrial heritage and recent experience as European Capital of Culture 2025, provided a fitting setting for three days devoted to improving how we accumulate, evaluate, and understand scientific evidence.
We are grateful for co-funding by the German research foundation (DFG) and the ACROSS University Alliance Grant Award for Conferences.
Now we are already looking forward to the next MAER-Net Colloquium 2027 at Greenwich University, UK.
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