Scientific research/method consists of the following steps:

---observation,

---asking a question,

---gathering information,

---forming a hypothesis,

---gathering data

---testing the hypothesis,

---discussing the results

---making conclusions, reporting, and evaluating

---citing applications to society.

Your above mentioned criteria are those that normally should apply for charcterizing a research as scientific.

But, in practice as scientific research is every Big Project with a respectable Big Budget, despite if it hunts for ... non existing butterflies.

I think LIGO project is such a good example:

Money for nothing, just for salaries and public relations plus a good chance to be feed all of us with mythical, although non existing, objects...

Any study that employs the scientific processes can be labelled as Scientific Research.

Fot research to be sciientific it must follow the logic of the scientific method using a quantitative experimental or survey approach with a hypothesis, and testing a theory. it must present a problem, develop a hypothesis, construct a theoretical construct, gather data, analyse the data quantitatively; and draw conclsions for discovery. The research can be in the hard oor social sciences following a logical sequential method of research

Dr Réagan

#IStandwithEli

Following

Scientific research/method consists of the following steps:

---observation,

---asking a question,

---gathering information,

---forming a hypothesis,

---gathering data

---testing the hypothesis,

---discussing the results

---making conclusions, reporting, and evaluating

---citing applications to society.

A research is said to be scientific when it is replicable, reproductive with its valid conclusions solidly rooted on tested theories and concepts.

Scientific research is the systematic investigation of scientific theories and hypotheses. A hypothesis is a single assertion, a proposed explanation of something based on available knowledge, for something yet to be explained. One that is subject to further experimentation.

The submission of Dr Dickson and Dr Jack said it all in simple but very clear terms.

It should follow a methodology that lends itself to analysis and must be repeatable

Dear Aurelio

The scientific research must perform according scientific method steps which including the statistical analysis as a backbone for methodology.

Good Luck

I'll give you an example of a pseudo ethnicity that people located on Vardarska Banovina of old Kingdom of Yugoslavia (see image Kingdom_of_Yugoslavia ) decided on 1944 to self call themselves 'Macedonian' and now, after more than 70 years, they claim from Greece not to use the name of its ancient region of Macedonia!

See the map of ancient Kingdom of Macedonia and the modern state borders (second image LocationMacedonia )

I inform you that there exist many 'scientists' who support the arguments of the thefts of Greek Heritage and symbols, see more details and sources here:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Dont_you_think_that_it_is_time_for_stop_stealing_Greek_Heritage_dear_people_of_Vardarska_Banovina2

The only requirement for such 'studies' was a good payment!

Thus, pseudo science is more popular than you may have thought...

I think yes but some time related the subject or scientific problem.

best regard

Good question and informative answers Thank you all!

Good question

Thank you all for sharing your valuable answers.

Of course, the criteria mentioned by @ Subhash C. Kundu and next comments are adequate and should be helpful in assessing whether a given activity IS or IS NOT a scientific study.

In practice - during the process of expert evaluation of proposals for scientific projects, I have met many times with stupid, strange criteria, which sometimes allowed to recognize a breakthrough, innovative project as one that "did not have a scientific backbone".

Probably also we all regularly laugh at the disseminated not only in the scientific community, but also popular scientific examples of "research" that do nothing and do nothing de facto to the state of our knowledge.

Dear Aurelio Hess , it is an interesting question.

According to the definition given by Business Dictionary (http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/scientific-research.html),

Scientific research is application of scientific methods () to the investigation of relationships among the natural phenomenon or to solve medical or technical problems.

A. Problem solving: Step-by-step approach consisting of (1) identifying and defining a problem, (2) accumulating relevant data, (3) formulating a tentative hypothesis, (4) conducting experiments to test the hypothesis, (5) interpreting the results objectively, and (6) repeating the steps until an acceptable solution is found.

B. Sciences: Rigorous, systematic approach, designed to eliminate bias and other subjective influences in the search, identification, and measurement or validation of facts and cause-effect relationships, and from which scientific laws may be deduced.

No, there are all kinds of research outside science: marketing research, statistical research, investigative research, to name a few.

Always add the qualifier "scientific" to "research", if you want to be sure that your audience and you are in sync.

But even then you can't always be 100% sure about it, because some English language communities have decided - for non-scientific reasons - to only use the qualifier "scientific" for a particular subset of science, i.e. the natural sciences, or the physical sciences, and exclude from their definition the social sciences or the human sciences and a lot of other genuine sciences.

Indeed, the scientific world is itself highly unpredictable.

Research is not necessarily scientific research. That's a matter of linguistic facts. We, as genuine scientists, or so we hope at least, we have no control over the usage of words outside our own professional domain.

We can do our best to tell our students what genuine scientific research is like, in our discipline, but we have only marginal control over how they will use it as they grow into researchers themselves:

• Perhaps they have misunderstood us.
• Perhaps they have only learned a subset of the diverse logical and ethical rules governing high-quality scientific research.
• Maybe they only practice some of the logical and ethical rules governing high-quality scientific research.
• In some cases they forget readily about such quality criteria because it is so easy to make money with fake research.

Who knows what happens in the name of pure or applied scientific research, which doesn't really deserve this name?

Interesting.

In a people centered perspective of cultural research of community indigenous knowledge: If the research methods can be replicated, and if the data accrued validates the meaning of the re-search, then the written results with its new information is a science/scientific result.