Bias against innovation in peer review?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I don't know if this is the place to ask, but I wonder if there is some bias against innovative research in our profession, including publication. Do you have the impression that oftentimes the more interesting research has a harder time of being published than a very polished but a little boring paper? I have gone through a few rounds of grad student admissions, and I found that many colleagues are more sympathetic towards all-round okay candidates than those who appear to be very innovative but not so okay in some respects. I judge the latter to have a higher intellectual ability but the former seems to be standardly preferred. Sorry about the ranting---I am not sure if it makes sense to anybody besides me.

This is an interesting question, and I'm curious what readers think. Thankfully, there's actually quite a bit of research on this question on peer review in general, which Liam Kofi Bright, Remco Heesen, and I briefly touch upon on pp. 21-22 in our forthcoming BSPS paper, "Jury Theorems for Peer Review." In brief, to the extent that this has been studied, peer review does appear to have a conservative/status quo bias (see also here). But, in a way, this seems entirely natural to me. As the saying goes, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Insofar as innovative work takes chances and pushes the envelope (so to speak), it's quite natural for readers to be skeptical about it (this also just seems plausibly on Bayesian grounds). Fortunately, if the history of philosophy and science have shown anything, it's that innovative work can pass peer review regardless--and, of course, most of us serve as reviewers. So, if the OP is frustrated by what they take to be a bias against innovation, there are at least two things they can try to do to change things: try to publish innovative work and be open to it as a reviewer!

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

Comments

[Young and Innovative]

I wonder if the OP's point is even more forceful as applied to graduate admissions. Maybe we are doing innovative grad students a favor by not admitting them to PhD programs if their work will not get published anyway, but at the same time, we might worry that stifling innovation at that stage is a huge loss. In particular, if those who are young, innovative, and brash can be helped, mentored, and supported in the ways that they are "not so okay," then maybe the field would flourish with more of them around!

[non tt faculty]

I have the same feeling when it comes to undergraduate marking, that students who play safe tend to end up with better overall grades. As a policy, I told my students to talk to me if they feel that their innovation was punished.

On a similar note, perhaps it's just me, but I have the feeling that the most interesting works, at least regarding my AoS, tend to come from journals that are in the middle of Leiterian ranking (not top top but typically top 20).