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Researchers value null results, but struggle to publish them


Survey finds that fear of reputational harm and a lack of support and publication platforms are among respondents’ key concerns.

That only 30% of respondents with null results had attempted to publish them is not surprising to Ritu Dhand, Springer Nature’s chief scientific officer in London. This reputational concern reflects a disconnect in science, says Marcus Munafò, a biological psychologist and executive director of the UK Reproducibility Network, which aims to improve the trustworthiness of research. “One of the reasons for publishing null results is to create a more honest denominator in the version of record” — a more accurate picture of the research landscape.

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