Tackling Research Waste: Call for Papers for JMIR Metascience and Research Integrity

Toronto, June 13: JMIR Publications invites submissions to a new section titled "Waste in Research" in its open access journal JMIR Metascience and Research Integrity. This new journal focuses on publishing metascience (also known as metaresearch or "research on "research"), which aims to increase the quality and efficiency of research and advance the quality, transparency, and integrity of the scholarly publishing ecosystem. The journal addresses ethical challenges, best practices, and scientific integrity issues through metascience and evidence-based research standards.

Research waste refers to wasting scientific resources, most notably funding, due to poor practices that prevent scientific findings from translating into meaningful, real-world outcomes. While estimating the exact annual cost of this waste is challenging, some figures suggest a loss of up to 85% in total global biomedical research funding, or approximately US $228 billion of the US $268 billion spent annually, yielding no practical benefit. 

A growing body of metascientific evidence demonstrates that a significant portion of published research carries methodological and statistical shortcomings that severely compromise both internal and external validity. This systemic issue frequently stems from misaligned research priorities, flawed study designs, the incorrect application of statistical analyses, and publication bias, among other poor scientific practices. 

JMIR Metascience and Research Integrity invites submissions such as empirical research articles, viewpoints, research letters, and systematic or umbrella reviews focused on “research on research” (metascience) that explore the shortcomings of published literature and investigate its negative impact on real-world outcomes.

Submissions may explore, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Research prioritization, which explores the alignment of research questions with societal, patient, and public needs through participatory research, rather than relying solely on outcomes prioritized by researchers. 
• Misapplication of research methodologies or statistical analyses, which can compromise the evidence base by generating inaccurate and imprecise outcome estimates. 
• Redundancy in evidence synthesis, resulting from the methodology, execution, and proliferation of redundant research, particularly secondary evidence syntheses (eg, systematic reviews). 
• Reporting quality and bias, including how poor reporting practices and publication bias distort the scientific evidence base, limiting the extent to which it can be translated into the real world. 
• Statistical power and reliability, including how underpowered research undermines the reliability of scientific outcomes by inflating the risk of both false positives and false negatives. 
• Citation practices and bias, including the undercitation of nonsignificant findings, the miscitation of existing literature, and the selective use of prior evidence in grant applications, which distort the research landscape. 
• The impact of the replication crisis, including how systemic reproducibility issues affect the reliability of foundational research and dictate the trajectory of future scientific research.