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.…”

Invisible Publications: A Study of Academic Productivity in the Web of Science Database

“…An emphasis on citations as a means of evaluating the quality of an academic work can become a vicious cycle that can influence the processes of searching for and producing knowledge (Castiel and Sanz-Valero, 2007;Lawrence, 2008). This context, which encompasses academic productivity and citationism, has cast a shadow over academia causing irreversible damage, including: encouraging the precarities of an excess of redundant or superfluous information (Castiel and Sanz-Valero, 2007;Else and Van Noorden, 2021;Tian et al, 2016); promoting the publication of the same content in several articles across different journals, or "salami slicing", through the publication of underdeveloped, incomplete, split up, or repetitive articles (Castiel and Sanz-Valero, 2007;Lawrence, 2008;Rego, 2014); bombarding prestigious journals with submissions, occupying the time of editors and ad hoc reviewers in an exhausting review cycle (Rego, 2014); enabling the emergence of predatory publishers that have increased dramatically in number and wealth in recent years or companies that sell scientific articles to researchers (Rego, 2014;Else and Van Noorden, 2021); generating a stand-off between ethics and research as it forces scientists to produce "publishable" results at any cost, encouraging scientific misconduct (Castiel and Sanz-Valero, 2007;Fanelli, 2010;Moustafa, 2015;Rego, 2014;Rubbo et al, 2019;Sayão et al, 2021); and causing health issues among university professors (Leite, 2017;Tian et al, 2016).…”

“…Despite the recurrent mention in the literature of rarely cited or uncited articles, only a few studies specifically analyze this body of literature. One such article is that of Sayão et al (2021). Although they take a triumphalist view of science, they show that an important proportion of scientific research produces negative results (inconclusive experiments or unexpected data), which almost as a rule, makes publication unfeasible or leads to publications that are rarely cited.…”