New EU-funded research, published in the journal Public Library of Science ONE, shows that the ever-growing pressure to produce publishable results can adversely impact the quality of scientific research. Support for the work came from the Objective Science ('Quantifying objectivity in the natural and social sciences') project. The project had received more than €161,000 under the People Specific Programme of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) to assess the level of bias in the natural and social sciences.
Researchers worldwide produce more than 1.4 million scientific articles each year. Dr. Daniele Fanelli of the University of Edinburgh in the UK investigated over 1,300 papers from disciplines ranging from physics to sociology that declared to have tested a hypothesis. It was found that researchers report more 'positive' results for their experiments if they are based in US states where academics publish more frequently.
Dr. Fanelli used data from the US-based National Science Foundation (NSF) to verify whether the papers' conclusions were in any way connected to the productivity of US states, measured by the average number of papers published by each academic. He found that authors working in more 'productive' states were more inclined to support the tested hypothesis regardless of their research domain and whether or not funding was allocated to them. His research findings also reportedly hint that academics who carry out research in more competitive and productive environments are more likely to make their results look more 'positive'.
Dr. Fanelli also found that positive results were less than 50 percent of the total in the US states of Nevada, North Dakota and Mississippi. The states that had 95-100 percent positive results included Michigan, Ohio and Nebraska, as well as the District of Columbia.
The conclusions could be applied to all scientifically advanced countries, says the study, adding that policies that rely excessively on productivity measures might be lowering the quality of research.
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