Competition for priority harms the reliability of science, but reforms can help

Abstract

cademic science is a culturally evolved social institution with formal rules, norms and conventions. However, in recent years, scientists have begun to examine the utility of even longstanding characteristics of this institution 1-3 . For example, it is now widely recognized that preferentially valuing positive over negative results can generate publication bias, which distorts the published literature 4,5 ; evaluating scientists based on their number of publications can cause a myopic focus on productivity at the expense of rigour 6 ; and rewarding scientists based on the prestige of the journal in which they publish may incentivize scientists to present their work in an overly positive light, submit low-quality papers to high-impact journals and engage in other questionable research practices [7][8][9][10][11][12] .The priority rule is a particularly longstanding scientific norm, in which individuals who are first to make discoveries receive disproportionate credit relative to all other individuals who provide solutions to the same problem 13,14 . Famously, Charles Darwin was motivated to publish his writings on evolution by means of natural selection in part because of a concern that he would lose priority to Alfred Russel Wallace, who had developed a similar idea. In his famous letter to Charles Lyell, Darwin proclaimed "I rather hate the idea of writing for priority, yet I certainly should be vexed if any one were to publish my doctrines before me" 15 . Rewards for priority take on various forms, including eponymy (that is, naming a scientific discovery after the scientist who discovered it), financial prizes (for example, the Nobel prize), an increased probability of publishing in high-impact journals, and better professional positions and speaking engagements 3,13,16,17 . Little research explicitly documents the career repercussions of losing a priority race (that is, getting scooped). However, one survey of physical and biological scientists found that over 60% of scientists reported being scooped at some point in their careers 18 , and a recent study among structural biologists found that scooped papers received 28% fewer citations and were 18% less likely to appear in a top-ten journal 19 . This suggests that scientists have significant incentives to compete over priority of discovery.Given its role as a major incentive, how does rewarding priority of discovery affect scientific inquiry? Rewards for priority can

Responsible Research Assessment I: Implementing DORA and CoARA for hiring and promotion in psychology

“…And how can we pragmatically replace the current, flawed metrics of research productivity with ones that more validly reflect reliable, incremental knowledge gain? The primary goal of such an assessment scheme would be to ensure that actual research quality is sustained (or even promoted) when evaluation metrics are being maximized -both actively, when researchers strategically decide how to behave in order to further their own careers (sometimes to the extent of gaming the system), and passively, when institutions select and reward individuals who scored highest in the rankings based on these parameters (Bakker et al, 2012;Franco, Malhotra, & Simonovits, 2014;Müller & de Rijcke, 2017;Smaldino & McElreath, 2016;Tiokhin, Yan, & Morgan, 2021). This whitepaper reports the results of this task force.…”

Systemic problems require systemic solutions: the need for coordination and cooperation to improve research quality

“…We need to encourage a more realistic view of what constitutes valuable research. Some journals have introduced policies that protect authors against “scooping”, by offering a period of protection where manuscripts will be considered even if similar findings have recently been published elsewhere [ 5 , 6 ]. This reduces incentives to be the first to publish, which can result in a hyper-competitive atmosphere that reduces quality.…”

From evolutionary ecosystem simulations to computational models of human behavior

“…Reforms such as registered reports or pre-registration may result in improved research quality. (Tiokhin et al, 2021) 2.4 | Psychology and cognitive science…”