The climate of academic scientific research requires publication for professional success and sustainability. Publication of novel, positive, and “exciting” research is emphasized over negative results and replications. Thus, researchers are incentivized to make design, analysis, and reporting decisions that promote positive results and ignore negative results. This results in a biased body of literature. When the incentive structure emphasizes novelty over replication, false results persist in the literature because they remain unchallenged. The accumulation of scientific knowledge is slowed by both of these factors. This talk touches on the evidence and challenges for reproducibility in scientific research, then delves deeper into initiatives to nudge incentives and norms toward practices that can improve reproducibility.

Addressing researcher Incentives for publishability over accuracy

249th National Meeting (2015)

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