Abstract

The ongoing debate about a “replication crisis” has put scientific failure in the spotlight, not only in psychological research and the social sciences but also in the life sciences. However, despite this increased salience of failure in research, the concept itself has so far received little attention in the literature (for an exception, see Ref. 1). The lack of a systematic perspective on scientific failure—a daily experience for researchers—hampers our understanding of this complex phenomenon and the development of efficient policies and measures to address it. Without a better grasp of the multiple dimensions of scientific failure, there is a risk that necessary measures will be neglected or that inadequate policies will be adopted because different kinds of failures require different responses. Developing a basic taxonomy of scientific failure will help to identify connections between different types of failures and benefit the formulation of policy measures for improving replicability.