Andrea Menclover of the University of Canterbury (New Zealand) has recently founded the SURE Journal, whose aims and scope are as follows:
'The Series of Unsurprising Results in Economics (SURE) is an e-journal of high-quality research with “unsurprising” findings. We publish scientifically important and carefully-executed studies with statistically insignificant or otherwise unsurprising results. Studies from all fields of Economics will be considered. SURE is an open-access journal and there are no submission charges. (My emphasis, DG.)
SURE benefits readers by:
- Mitigating the publication bias and thus complementing other journals in an effort to provide a complete account of the state of affairs;
- Serving as a repository of potential (and tentative) “dead ends” in Economics research.
SURE benefits writers by:
- Providing an outlet for interesting, high-quality, but “risky” (in terms of uncertain results) research projects;
- Decreasing incentives to data-mine, change theories and hypotheses ex post or exclusively focus on provocative topics.'
This is a novel venture that has a lot to offer at a time when research replicability and publication bias are (rightly) receiving so much attention.
I'm delighted to be associated with the new journal as a member of its Editorial Board.