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Like all things in life that have risks of fraud, negligence or potential failure, insurance could be the answer. Want to publish in a peer reviewed paper? Wel

Like all things in life that have risks of fraud, negligence or potential failure, insurance could be the answer. Want to publish in a peer reviewed paper? Well then your institution or you should take out a bond or insurance policy that guarantees your work is accurate. The insurance amount would fluctuate based on how big of impact this study could have. Is it a drug that will be consumed by millions? Big insurance policy. Is it a behavioral study without much risk... small insurance policy. Is a a person in an institution found caught committing fraud, well now then all papers from that institution now have higher premiums. Did you sign off on a peer reviewed paper that was fraud? Well now your premiums are going up also. Insurance costs too high to publish? Well then keep doing research until the underwriters are satisfied that your work isn't fraud and adjust the premiums down. It adds a direct near-term economic incentive to publish honestly and punishes those that abuse the system.

jltsiren 2y ago
In other words, you are suggesting more stringent peer review conducted by insurance companies. And because insurance companies are too small to have sufficient in-house expertise on every topic, the reviews will be usually done by external consultants. The costs might be from $10k for simple papers to hundreds of thousands for large complex papers. The insurance model does not really work when the cost of evaluating the risks far outweighs the expected risks.
- jeremyjh 2y ago
  That is like saying my insurance company has to follow me around for a week while I drive before they can underwrite a policy. If there is money to be made, and money to be lost, the actuaries will find a way. The problem could be, that it may become impossible to publish certain kinds of papers that are very well supported and valuable because no institution can afford the insurance.
  - hansonkd 2y ago
    > that it may become impossible to publish certain kinds of papers that are very well supported and valuable because no institution can afford the insurance. What type of research would that be? Just publish it online without insurance and everyone will treat it as it unverified and uninsured... separate from other research that is. Once the risk of the publishing research has gone down (i.e. reputable peers approve, or the findings were replicated), the cost of the insurance goes down also. if something is so costly to insure, there would be a reason and thus the system works.
    - jeremyjh 2y ago
      If it is possible to advance your career by publishing uninsured research then we've just renamed the problem, although I do like the idea of adding this structure. Eventually there could be so much of it that it would become an accepted norm that your research isn't actually published in a journal until five years after you informally publish it. Other scientists in the field have to be abreast of the latest findings, so now these informal publications are the true journals.
      - hansonkd 2y ago
        I see your point, the success of this would have to align with a change in the broader academia to only cite research from insured researchers. The "organic" way this would happen is if there was a shift so that journals with insured research are far more valuable than uninsured research. Or perhaps if companies started suing researchers for negligence and fraud and recuperate costs if they used research that was later proved to be fraud. In the literary world, anyone can publish a book, but a book from o'reilly caries with it a different level of authority and diligence then a self published book or blog post. So the shift would have to be that your career can't advance without publishing a bonded and insured paper.
        jeremyjh 2y ago
        But that is not how research works in Academia. They have to follow the bleeding edge of the field, or they may be doing work of their own that is already irrelevant. They will not wait until a consortium of insurance companies and underwriters have done the actuarial analysis and come up with an underwriting product that the institution has funded (and what is the institution's business model for recovering this cost in a field of pure research, anyway?)
  - jltsiren 2y ago
    You are not the first person in the world to own a home or drive a car. Insurance companies can offer you cost-effective insurance, because you are doing effectively the same things as many other people. Science is largely about doing novel things and often being the first person in the world to try something. In order to understand the risks, you have to understand the actual research, as well as the personalities and personal lives of the people doing it. Then there is the question of perverse incentives. Research fraud is not a random event but an intentional action by the people who take the insurance. If they manage to convince you to underwrite their research, they know that the consequences of getting caught will be less severe than without the insurance, making fraud more likely. Normally intentional fraud would not be covered by the policy, but here covering it would be the explicit purpose of the insurance.
    - hansonkd 2y ago
      Insurance companies insure one off events all the time. You can literally insure anything, its just a matter if the premiums outweigh what you perceive as the risk. "Uninsurable" just means the price is too high to be considered practical. The research might be novel, but the procedures for research and publication are very similar. So insurance companies would just make sure that you followed a protocol which minimizes their risk. perverse incentives are taken into account by insurance. Insuring someone is always a adversarial back and forth to determine if they are being truthful or not. Which is why Life insurance companies require a physical. They don't just have you self report and then accept it as fact. Industry professionals like lawyers and doctors carry malpractice insurance. A lawyer can still commit fraud. Insurance isn't a black and white thing. It is a sliding scale that ties risk to a monetary value. Its not rocket science. Just actuarial science. ;)
      - jltsiren 2y ago
        > The research might be novel, but the procedures for research and publication are very similar. This is wrong. Some time ago, I completed the checklists for publishing a paper in a somewhat prestigious multidisciplinary journal. Large parts of the lists were about complying with various best practices and formal requirements in different fields. I often didn't even understand the questions outside my field. And the questions nominally within my field were often category errors. They assumed a mode of doing research that was far from universal. Overall, the process was more frustrating than (let's say) applying for a US visa.
- hansonkd 2y ago
  > you are suggesting more stringent peer review conducted by insurance companies Absolutely not. Underwriters are smart. They use other variables and methods for determining risk. They don't need to directly recreate and peer review the research themselves.

jltsiren 2y ago

In other words, you are suggesting more stringent peer review conducted by insurance companies. And because insurance companies are too small to have sufficient in-house expertise on every topic, the reviews will be usually done by external consultants. The costs might be from $10k for simple papers to hundreds of thousands for large complex papers. The insurance model does not really work when the cost of evaluating the risks far outweighs the expected risks.

jeremyjh 2y ago
That is like saying my insurance company has to follow me around for a week while I drive before they can underwrite a policy. If there is money to be made, and money to be lost, the actuaries will find a way. The problem could be, that it may become impossible to publish certain kinds of papers that are very well supported and valuable because no institution can afford the insurance.
- hansonkd 2y ago
  > that it may become impossible to publish certain kinds of papers that are very well supported and valuable because no institution can afford the insurance. What type of research would that be? Just publish it online without insurance and everyone will treat it as it unverified and uninsured... separate from other research that is. Once the risk of the publishing research has gone down (i.e. reputable peers approve, or the findings were replicated), the cost of the insurance goes down also. if something is so costly to insure, there would be a reason and thus the system works.
  - jeremyjh 2y ago
    If it is possible to advance your career by publishing uninsured research then we've just renamed the problem, although I do like the idea of adding this structure. Eventually there could be so much of it that it would become an accepted norm that your research isn't actually published in a journal until five years after you informally publish it. Other scientists in the field have to be abreast of the latest findings, so now these informal publications are the true journals.
    - hansonkd 2y ago
      I see your point, the success of this would have to align with a change in the broader academia to only cite research from insured researchers. The "organic" way this would happen is if there was a shift so that journals with insured research are far more valuable than uninsured research. Or perhaps if companies started suing researchers for negligence and fraud and recuperate costs if they used research that was later proved to be fraud. In the literary world, anyone can publish a book, but a book from o'reilly caries with it a different level of authority and diligence then a self published book or blog post. So the shift would have to be that your career can't advance without publishing a bonded and insured paper.
      - jeremyjh 2y ago
        But that is not how research works in Academia. They have to follow the bleeding edge of the field, or they may be doing work of their own that is already irrelevant. They will not wait until a consortium of insurance companies and underwriters have done the actuarial analysis and come up with an underwriting product that the institution has funded (and what is the institution's business model for recovering this cost in a field of pure research, anyway?)
- jltsiren 2y ago
  You are not the first person in the world to own a home or drive a car. Insurance companies can offer you cost-effective insurance, because you are doing effectively the same things as many other people. Science is largely about doing novel things and often being the first person in the world to try something. In order to understand the risks, you have to understand the actual research, as well as the personalities and personal lives of the people doing it. Then there is the question of perverse incentives. Research fraud is not a random event but an intentional action by the people who take the insurance. If they manage to convince you to underwrite their research, they know that the consequences of getting caught will be less severe than without the insurance, making fraud more likely. Normally intentional fraud would not be covered by the policy, but here covering it would be the explicit purpose of the insurance.
  - hansonkd 2y ago
    Insurance companies insure one off events all the time. You can literally insure anything, its just a matter if the premiums outweigh what you perceive as the risk. "Uninsurable" just means the price is too high to be considered practical. The research might be novel, but the procedures for research and publication are very similar. So insurance companies would just make sure that you followed a protocol which minimizes their risk. perverse incentives are taken into account by insurance. Insuring someone is always a adversarial back and forth to determine if they are being truthful or not. Which is why Life insurance companies require a physical. They don't just have you self report and then accept it as fact. Industry professionals like lawyers and doctors carry malpractice insurance. A lawyer can still commit fraud. Insurance isn't a black and white thing. It is a sliding scale that ties risk to a monetary value. Its not rocket science. Just actuarial science. ;)
    - jltsiren 2y ago
      > The research might be novel, but the procedures for research and publication are very similar. This is wrong. Some time ago, I completed the checklists for publishing a paper in a somewhat prestigious multidisciplinary journal. Large parts of the lists were about complying with various best practices and formal requirements in different fields. I often didn't even understand the questions outside my field. And the questions nominally within my field were often category errors. They assumed a mode of doing research that was far from universal. Overall, the process was more frustrating than (let's say) applying for a US visa.
hansonkd 2y ago
> you are suggesting more stringent peer review conducted by insurance companies Absolutely not. Underwriters are smart. They use other variables and methods for determining risk. They don't need to directly recreate and peer review the research themselves.