Four pilot research projects were funded in the 2005 grant program:

• Assessing the Feasibility of Building a Database of Trial Transcripts Containing Scientific Testimony
  Simon Cole, PhD, University of California, Irvine, Department of Criminology, Law & Society
  This project seeks to investigate the feasibility of enhancing Daubert scholarship by building a database of trial and admissibility hearing transcripts concerning Daubert issues. The pilot study will explore the feasibility of building a database systematically, rather than opportunistically, and compare the feasibility and cost-benefit ratio of two different systematic approaches.
• Daubert in the States
  Herbert M. Kritzer, PhD, University of Wisconsin Law School and Department of Political Science
  This study will examine whether there are any systematic patterns to decisions regarding whether or not to adopt all or part of Daubert. Data will be assembled from a variety of public sources, and a series of models will be tested employing logistic regression, ordered probit analysis, and event history analysis.
  Accepted for publication in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies
• Filtering Expert Testimony Elements
  Dawn McQuiston-Surrett, PhD, Arizona State University College of Law
  Michael J. Saks, PhD, Arizona State University College of Law
  The goal of this study is to better understand the elements of expert testimony that mislead factfinders, and to see whether it would be feasible and effective for judges to exercise their discretion under Daubert in a more refined way than wholesale admission or exclusion of a proffered expert. Investigators will present simulated expert testimony to judges and to laypersons, asking them to make judgments about the likelihood that a perpetrator has been correctly identified.
• Effects of Daubert on Expert Evidence Practices in Federal District Court of South Carolina
  James T. Richardson, JD, PhD, University of Nevada, Reno, Grant Sawyer Center for Justice Studies
  Gerald P. Ginsburg, PhD, University of Nevada, Reno, Judicial Studies Program
  This pilot study will examine the usefulness of case files of the Federal District Court of South Carolina dataset in understanding the impact of Daubert and its progeny on the functioning of the American legal system. Investigators will do a comparison of expert witness practices before and after the 1993 Daubert decision and interview judges, other court personnel, and attorneys to learn how Daubert has affected management of cases involving expert evidence.

Read more:

Most recent Request for Proposals  (now closed).

Read about the 2004 pilot projects.

Other research studies on Daubert.