Pre-doctoral research positions are becoming increasingly common in economics and related fields. While these pre-docs are often responsible for data collection, cleaning, and analysis, there are no open science initiatives geared toward those who will fill these positions. Furthermore, pre-doctoral researchers in economics tend to have similar backgrounds in terms of demographics and undergraduate institutions.

This workshop aimed to diversify the set of applicants to pre-doctoral fellowships and provide them with the tools to conduct transparent and reproducible research. To do so, the project invited economics students, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds, interested in pursuing graduate studies to a workshop. This workshop featured panels of current pre-doctoral researchers discussing their experiences, collaborative coding practice in small groups, as well as presentations on open science from other BITSS Catalysts. Slides, coding materials, and recordings of the workshop are available here.