Founding Members
The People Behind GIRCS
Five communication scientists whose careers are built around rigorous, open, and replicable science.
The Global Initiative for Replication in Communication Science (GIRCS) is a community of scholars dedicated to the systematic replication of key empirical findings in communication research — across labs, countries, and cultures.
Communication science shapes real-world campaigns, policy, and public understanding. Its findings must be robust.
Many landmark communication studies are based on small samples with underpowered designs. Major findings shaping real-world campaigns have never been independently verified.
We run large-scale, preregistered, multilab replication studies — recruiting labs across countries to test whether key effects hold across populations, cultures, and contexts.
All GIRCS projects are preregistered, open-access, and archived on OSF. Regardless of outcome, every replication is published — null results included.
Communication science shapes how we understand media effects, health campaigns, privacy behavior, and social influence. Yet a surprisingly large share of its foundational studies have never been replicated — and most were tested in a single country, with a single population, in a single moment in time.
GIRCS was founded by a group of scholars committed to changing that — systematically, rigorously, and collaboratively. We build international consortia spanning dozens of labs across Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania, secure funding, and coordinate multilab designs that test whether communication effects hold not just in one place, but across the cultural and linguistic contexts in which our field's claims are meant to apply.
Meet the Founding MembersFive communication scientists whose careers are built around rigorous, open, and replicable science.