Antica Čulina

My current work revolves around three mutually connected topics: meta-science, open science, and informed decision making.

Meta-research in ecology

Meta-research is research that applies scientific methods to the study of the research and publishing system itself. Meta-researchers (including myself) do this to identify and quantify the issues that these systems are facing and, based on this research, to develop and evaluate potential solutions to these issues. The aim of my current project is to decrease the unused potential of ecological research in two ways: (1) by enabling better use of all research components (e.g., research data, code, etc), and (2) by reducing research waste, i.e., research with no or limited information value, that accumulates over the research life cycle.

Open Science and meta-analysis in Ecology

Open science aims at improving the impact of scientific work by making all research components open (i.e., available to anyone to access and use). This includes data, code, publications, and review. With this project, we (1) study the implementation of open (and FAIR) principles in ecology, (1) enable ecologist to better use open practices and tools, and (3) evaluate the added value of open practices to meta-analyses in ecology.

An important part of my work in open and transparent science focuses on helping ecologists to be better able to utilize all the benefits of connected data landscape. Given that my previous work (PhD and before) was mostly done using birds as a study system, in 2018 I have initiated and later co-founded a network of researchers who work on long-term studies of individually marked birds. We collect data from research groups and then create pipelines that put all datasets into the same, standard format. We also create meta-data for each population and make populations more visible to users. You can learn more about the SPI-birds Network and Databases here

Since 2022

Senior Researcher at the Ruđer Bošković Institute, Croatia

2018 - 2021

Researcher at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Netherlands

2016-2018

Postdoctoral Researcher at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Netherlands

2015-2016

Postdoctoral Researcher at the Wildlife Research Conservation Unit, University of Oxford, UK

2011-2015

DPhil in Zoology, University of Oxford, UK

• VENI research fellowship, 250 000 EUR by NWO, (2018-2021)

• Workshop funding, 25 000 EUR by Lorentz Center, Netherlands

• Dutch Data Prize for SPI-Birds project (2020) – 5 000 EUR

• Open Science Use Case Award (2020) for SPI-Birds initiative

• NWO Cooperation and Exchange / Scientific Meetings Grant for organizing 2 day symposium & workshops on Open Science in Ecology (2017) – 10 000 EUR

• RDA EU Early Career support Programme for the RDA 9th Plenary (2017)

• Conference travel grant, Welcome Trust, to attend #scidata16 (2016)

PhD students

• Jip Ramakers, NIOO-KNAW (2016-2018): Seasonal timing of breeding and environmental change

MSc students:

• Kiran Gok Lune Le, University of Groningen (2021): The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the gender gap in research production within academia (

• Marija Purgar, Sveučilište Josispa Juraja Strossmayera u Osijeku (2021): Estimating the unused potential of Ecological Research

• Odile Basedow, University of Amsterdam (2019): Systematic review of soil carbon sequestration processes

• Miriam Barto, Wageningen Univeristy (2018-2019): Mother infant stress

• Ilona van den Berg, VU University Amsterdam (2016-2017): Practices in sharing and availability of code in Ecology (rezultiralo jednim znanstvenim radom)

• Andrea Aldas Vargas, Wageningen University (2016-2017): Systematic review of meta-analysis in microbial ecology