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The international workshop on “Reproducibility of results in agricultural and life sciences” was organised in a hybrid format by the Hungarian University of Agricultural and Life Sciences (MATE) with the participation of invited international speakers.   

The reproducibility of research results is a prerequisite for scientific credibility. This does not guarantee the quality of research alone, but it is a necessary precondition for that. The reproducible research is particularly important in agricultural and life sciences, as these disciplines have a direct impact on human health via food security, as well as on the environment and economy. The programme provided an opportunity to learn from the ideas of a number of national and international specialists, thus ensuring an exchange of experience and knowledge. 

Dr. Zsombor Boromisza, Deputy Director General of the Buda Campus welcomed the guests and the online participants and presented the educational portfolio of the Hungarian University of Agricultural and Life Sciences (MATE), including the Campus. Underlining the importance of the topic of international workshop, he highlighted the necessity of the dialogue on experiences, as MATE considers its contribution to and shaping of domestic research and development as a priority objective. Therefore sharing and adopting best practices has a keynote importance. 

Dr. Zoltan Kovacs, Head of Research Strategy and head of the Research Excellence and Flagship Research Groups Programmes, presented a detailed insight into the research groups' fields of expertise and the related achievements so far. He also mentioned the progress of MATE in various world rankings. In this context, he expressed his pleasure, pointing out that the research, initiated and supported by MATE’s supporting programs, plays a crucial role in increasing international visibility. Speaking about the role of the actual international workshop, he underlined that this exchange of experiences is crucial for future orientation. The programme leader congratulated Professor Tamás Csörgő and his research team on their recent 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for their participation in the CLMS experiment. 

In the first half of the event, invited speakers discussed the state-of-art of international embeddedness and the best practices of internationalisation.   

First of all, Dr Hynek Roubík, Dean, and Director of BioResources and Technology Division at the Czech University of Life Sciences (CZU), gave a detailed presentation on promoting academic excellence, strategic steps to enhance it, including organisational development and last but not least, he highlighted also the importance of research reproducibility, as a cornerstone of transparent and impactful research. He introduced CZU's current situation and the work being done to move forward, stressing the importance of a high ratio of international faculties/researchers/students. Also emphasized the need for the conscious determination of institutional development goals, including the alignment with sustainable development goals, and their own good practice in developing an innovative green campus.   

Dávid Békési, MATE's International Director, gave an overview of our university's external relations and about the international impact of our cooperation with foreign partner organisations. 

Dr. Zoltán Lakner, Scientific Advisor of the Research Excellence and the Flagship Research Groups Programmes, informed the on-site and online audience about the publication performance of MATE, emphasizing its international comparison, and the composition of research funding sources in a very interesting and awareness-raising presentation.   

Prof. Daniel Ames (Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA), Editor-in-Chief of the D1 rated journal Environmental Modelling and Software (Elsevier), delivered a vibrant and authentic presentation from an editors’ perspective, highlighting the importance of reproducibility in agricultural and life sciences, with a special focus on computational reproducibility. He emphasized the need to share data and analysis codes for credible and transparent publications. He presented interesting illustrative examples from his own field of hydrological modelling, including the open databases and tools they developed. 

Dr. Monika Varga, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Animal Sciences, Scientific Advisor of Research Excellence and Flagship Research Groups Programmes, summarized the reproducibility-related activities and results in the HEU OSIRIS project. In her presentation, she highlighted that MATE's role in the project is to represent the specificities of agricultural and related life sciences, focusing specifically on computational reproducibility. She explained that we are witnessing a major change in the coming period, with high quality journals increasingly incorporating the requirement for researchers to support the conclusions of their publications with data (at least in line with FAIR principles), as well as to share the analytical and computational methods used. 

She discussed also the challenges in her own work, where modelling of complex systems and the opensource code of a general framework requires significant work (compared to sharing a few lines of script). 

In response to our question, she summarised, "It is of paramount importance to learn and incorporate practices that support open science in daily practice. A key objective of the project is to develop methods and tools to support reproducibility and test their effectiveness, as well as to develop an effective enabling environment by involving all stakeholders of the research ecosystem. This is particularly important for members of the Research Excellence and the Flagship Research Groups Programmes, so it was a pleasure to see many colleagues who have shown interest today."