Here is an overview of the various topics I am currently working on. Please email me for drafts of papers in progress, comments would be very much appreciated!

Biodiversity, Conservation & Values

Relevant work:

• Widespread support for a global species list with a formal governance system (Published in PNAS)

• Measuring and Explaining Disagreement in Bird Taxonomy (Accepted for publication in EJTS)

• A plea for preregistration in taxonomy (Published in Megataxa)

• Taxonomic disagreement about ranks in gray-area taxa: A vignette study (Published in BioScience)

• Taxonomic Order, Disorder, and Governance (Published in edited volume "Species Problems and Beyond")

• Principles for creating a single authoritative list of the world’s species (Published in PLoS Biology).

• In defense of taxonomic governance (Published in Organisms, diversity & Evolution)

• Values, regulation, and species delimitation (Published in Zootaxa)

• Integrative taxonomy and the operationalization of evolutionary independence (Published in EJPS)

• Measuring evolutionary independence: A pragmatic approach to species classification (Published in Biology & Philosophy)

• Onenigheid over soorten. Het bijna onoplosbare probleem van taxonomische wanorde (In dutch; published in the popular journal Natuur.focus)

• Phyloreferences: Tree-Native, Reproducible, and Machine-Interpretable Taxon Concepts  (published in PTPBIO).

• Consensus and a Unified Species Paradigm: Reality or Idle Hope? (Published in PTPBio)

• Radical pluralism, classificatory norms and the legitimacy of species classifications (published in Studies Part C)

• Taxonomy and conservation science: Interdependent and value-laden (published in HPLS)

• Towards a global list of accepted species I. Why taxonomists sometimes disagree, and why this matters (Published in ODE).

• Towards a global list of accepted species II. Consequences of inadequate taxonomic list governance (Published in ODE).

• Towards a global list of accepted species III. Independence and stakeholder inclusion (Published in Organisms, Diversity & Evolution).

• Towards a global list of accepted species IV: Overcoming fragmentation in the governance of taxonomic lists (Published in ODE).

• Towards a global list of accepted species V. The devil is in the detail (Published in ODE).

• FWO Blogpost (in dutch) 'Taxonomische wanorde: Een filosofisch-taxonomisch onderzoek naar de rol van waarden in soortenclassificatie', written with Vincent Cuypers, Andreas De Block and Tom Artois.

Values in Science

Relevant work:

• Enzyme classification and the entanglement of values and epistemic standards (published in Studies Part A)

• Radical pluralism, classificatory norms and the legitimacy of species classifications (published in Studies Part C)

• Taxonomy and conservation science: Interdependent and value-laden (published in HPLS)

• Towards a global list of accepted species III. Independence and stakeholder inclusion (Published in Organisms, Diversity & Evolution).

• Responsible dissemination in sexual orientation research: the case of the AI ‘gaydar’ (Published in Philosophy of Science)

• Survey on 'the perception of value of research' (together with Leander Vignero and Luna De Souter; Preregistered at OSF but embargoed until december 2022 -- email for questions).

• 'Innovation, Vandalism, and the Limits of Researcher Freedom' (Under review, email for draft).

• 'Fostering a Research Integrity Culture: Actionable Advice for Institutions' (With Steven De Peuter; under review, preprint published here).

Metaphilosophy

Relevant work:

• Against natural kind eliminativism (Published in Synthese)

• Liberalism, moral realism, and bias in moral philosophy (under review, email for draft)

• The public relevance of philosophy (Published in Synthese)

• Measuring the isolation of research topics in philosophy (Published in Scientometrics)

• Survey on 'Societal impact of research in the humanities' (together with Pei-Shan Chi, Leander Vignero and Olivier Lemeire; Preregistered at OSF but embargoed until december 2022 -- email for questions).

Research Funding & Science Policy

Relevant work:

• The Costs of Competition in Distributing Scarce Research Funds (Preprint on arXiv)

• Questionable research practices in competitive grant funding: A survey (Published in PLOS ONE)

• Grant writing and grant peer review as questionable research practices (Published in F1000) 

• Fostering a research integrity culture: Actionable advice for institutions (Published in Science and Public Policy)

• The modified lottery: Formalizing the intrinsic randomness of research funding (Published in Accountability in Research).

• Would it be better to burn research funding than to distribute it? (in dutch) (published in Karakter, email for draft)

• Towards an optimal distribution of research funding at KU Leuven (in dutch), report of the KU Leuven working group on research funding (to be released soon)