I’m not speaking about the ongoing sea changes in print journalism, but about the tendency of researchers to submit, and scientific publishers to print, successful research and ignore the failures.  While anyone in any field can learn from what went wrong, certain areas of research (medicine and engineering come to mind) are in stronger positions to make meaningful contributions to knowledge and to the use of that knowledge from reporting what failed.  The same is true of history, where learning why something didn’t happen can provide insight.  Understanding that something didn’t work in a field can shift choices in products purchased, treatments sought, or services offered.  Yet most published research excludes that kind of result.

One small step to addressing the ignorance of failure is starting with the journal Restoration Ecology.  According to Nature, the editors of Restoration Ecology will host a regular section in their journal for reports on experiments and projects in the field that did not meet expectations.  Understanding the baggage attached to the work failure, the section is titled “Set-Backs and Surprises.”  Perhaps this will catch on with other journals, especially if the setback or surprise is couple with some kind of analysis or discussion of lessons learned.  While policymakers are often focused more on the successes than what didn’t work, they do respond to lessons learned.  In that way, they may have a healthier attitude toward failure than the researchers they support.