Invisible science: publication of negative research results

Abstract

An important part of scientific research activities yield negative results – non-confirmatory and null data, inconclusive experiments, unexpected data. These results permeate the entire research cycle and constitute an important part of the full scientific knowledge flow generation. However, despite the acknowledgment that it is the non-confirmatory findings that result in the rejection of consolidated hypotheses that drive the progress of science, most of these investigation routes are not documented. Growing competition for resources, tenure, and impact publications induces researchers to produce “positive” results that are more likely to be published, interfering with the principles of science reproducibility and self-correction and in the scientific communication cycle. This study aims to review negative results incorporation in the traditional academic publication cycle. It also seeks to identify and systematize the main barriers that prevent researchers from publishing negative results. This exploratory study is based methodologically on the scarce literature on the subject. It confirms the initial assumption that few scientific journals accept, edit special issues or are dedicated to the publication of negative results.

An examination of the use of clinical trials as a source of information in scientific research

“…The non-availability of results for most of the completed CTs in the clinical databases consulted is a significant bottleneck for the publication and transparency of information, especially given the phenomenon of selective publication of results or non-publication of negative results (Sayão;Sales;Felipe, 2021). Many authors have highlighted the problem of selective publication, when only studies with positive or statistically significant results are published, while those with negative or non-significant results remain undisclosed (Page;Mckenzie;Higgins, 2018;Borysowski;Wnukiewicz-Kozłowska;Górski, 2020).…”

The Challenges of Identifying Significant Epistemic Failure in Science

“…It also returned a range of documents including blog posts, commentaries, opinion pieces and similar material as well as journal papers discussing the publication of negative results, providing (partial) lists of dedicated publication channels (e.g. Teixeira da Silva, 2015; Sayao et al, 2021). The search also pointed to some journals publishing negative results that already ceased to exist and are now only accessible via the Wayback Machine -Internet Archive.10 For some journals, no active websites could be found.…”