Publishing Negative Results In Research

The Importance of Publishing Negative Results In Research
Elsevier has recently launched a new journal dedicated to the publication of negative results in the plant sciences. Entitled New Negatives in Plant Science, the journal is open access and peer reviewed, but its unconventional mandate is to publish ‘hypothesis-driven, scientifically sound studies that describe unexpected, controversial, dissenting, and/or null (negative) results in basic plant sciences.’ The journal hopes to be ‘a counter-balance platform’ in relation to the traditional publication bias that favours positive results. It therefore embraces the principle that sound studies yielding negative results should be shared with the scientific community so that repetitive work can be avoided, resources are not wasted and future studies can be designed in a more informed way. New Negatives is also interested in studies that validate and verify controversial results, and it accepts commentary on the articles it publishes in order ‘to encourage scientific debate.’ There is a publication fee, but it is not an excessively high one when compared with that of some journals, and authors receive significant discounts during the journal’s first two years of publication (until 19 June 2016).

Far more expensive are the publication fees for the Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine, though this open-access, peer-reviewed publication notes on its web site that authors ‘retain the copyright of their articles and are free to reproduce and disseminate their work,’ and reviewers ‘are asked to sign their reviews.’ The aims of the journal are very similar to those of New Negatives (but with a focus on biomedicine, of course): to provide ‘a platform for the publication and discussion of unexpected, controversial, provocative and/or negative results’; ‘to publish results that challenge current models, tenets or dogmas’; to promote ‘the publication of clinical trials that fall short of demonstrating an improvement over current treatments’; and ‘to provide scientists and physicians with responsible and balanced information in order to improve experimental designs and clinical decisions.’

If you are interested in publishing an article that presents negative or controversial results, you may also want to consider F1000 Research and Scientific Reports, from the publishers of Nature). A quick search (I simply used ‘journals publishing negative results’) will reveal further options, suggesting that trends are changing for the better when it comes to publishing valuable negative results obtained through sound research.