The Academy of Medical Sciences (UK), jointly with the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the Medical Research Council (MRC) and Wellcome Trust, held a symposium in April 2015 to explore the challenges and opportunities for improving the reproducibility and reliability of biomedical research in the UK. A report of the symposium was published in October 2015, which highlighted the potential causes of irreproducibility and possible strategies for counteracting these. A progress update was published in October 2016, which set out some of the actions undertaken to improve reproducibility.