For some time there has been a concern in the academic community that journals would be more likely to publish articles that covered familiar topics. According to research from the University of Michigan, it’s a concern that is unwarranted, which shows that journals are more likely to publish papers on studies reporting new findings.

The researchers analyzed peer-reviewed data from nearly 50 journals in the physical and life science fields and found that evaluators didn’t show any noticeable bias against novelty, as has long been the fear.

Against novelty

The researchers explain that there has long been a concern that reviewers and journals leaned more toward conservative research findings, which inevitably discourages researchers from pursuing novel and innovative projects.

This fear was exacerbated by the degree of secrecy around the selection process, which made it difficult to know whether it was justified or not.

The researchers focused their attention on later-stage selection, as this is when projects are typically complete. They analyzed over 20,500 manuscripts that were submitted between 2013 and 2018 to the journals Cell Reports and Cell, as well as nearly 7,000 manuscripts submitted to the journals published by the Institute of Physics Publishing.

They found no evidence of conservatism, and indeed, the more novel the research, the more likely it was to be accepted, even when peer reviewers were similarly enthusiastic.

“The findings suggest that peer review is not inherently conservative, and help explain why researchers continue to do novel work,” the researchers explain. “Novel ideas may still be disfavored at earlier stages, when there is much more uncertainty about whether the ideas will work.”

The researchers also examined whether the creativity or novelty of a paper might prompt evaluators to disagree more often, which undermines publishing as that might require more consensus. They found no evidence that this bias exists either.

“Overall, the findings suggest that journal peer review favors novel research that is well situated in the existing literature, incentivizing exploration in science and challenging the view that peer review is inherently anti-novelty,” the researchers conclude.