Journal — Project Science Institute

JPS

Journal of Project Science

Peer-Reviewed · Diamond Open Access · Since 2026

Published by the Project Science Institute. No submission fees, no article processing charges, no paywalls. Authors retain copyright under CC BY 4.0.

Journal site — coming soon

Why It Exists

Rigor over outcome

Publication bias toward positive findings is a recognized threat to scientific integrity across disciplines, and the project management literature is no exception. When studies that fail to support a hypothesis go unpublished, researchers waste resources repeating investigations that already produced null results elsewhere, and practitioners adopt interventions the cumulative evidence does not support.

Several existing journals occasionally publish null findings, but very few are explicitly structured around the principle that methodological rigor matters more than outcome direction. The Journal of Project Science is built on that principle from the foundation up.

Aims & Scope

What the Journal publishes

Empirical research

Original research using any methodological tradition. Findings may be positive, null, negative, or inconclusive.

Registered reports

Two-stage submissions where the protocol is reviewed and accepted before data collection, with publication guaranteed for approved protocols.

Replication studies

Direct and conceptual replications of previously published findings in project management and adjacent fields.

Case & practitioner research

In-depth examinations of projects, programs, or organizations with explicit methodological reflection.

Theoretical papers

Arguments developing new frameworks or critically engaging with existing ones, grounded in scholarly literature.

Brief reports

Short reports of small studies, pilot data, unsuccessful method development, or focused analytical contributions.

The Null-Results Commitment

An explicit editorial policy

The Journal commits in writing that editorial decisions are made on the importance of the research question, the appropriateness and rigor of the methodology, the transparency of reporting, and the soundness of inferences, and not on the direction of findings, statistical significance, or consistency with prior literature.

Manuscripts that find no effect, fail to confirm a hypothesis, contradict published findings, or produce inconclusive results are evaluated on identical criteria to manuscripts that find positive effects. Reviewers receive explicit written guidance to apply the same standard.

If you have a file-drawer study, the Journal wants to see it. If you completed a methodologically sound study in project management that produced null findings and never wrote it up because the expected reception was discouraging, this is the venue for that work.

For Authors

Preparing a submission

The Journal accepts manuscripts in Microsoft Word or LibreOffice format, prepared for double-blind review with a separate title page. References follow APA 7th edition, with in-text citations placed adjacent to the specific claim they support rather than aggregated at paragraph ends, and DOIs included for all sources that have them.

Authors must disclose any use of generative AI tools, including the tools used and the purposes. Generative AI cannot be listed as an author, and submissions substantially generated by AI without meaningful human authorship are rejected without review. Data, code, and analytic materials should be made available to the extent permitted by ethical, legal, and proprietary constraints.

Submission portal status.The Journal’s submission system, ISSN, and DOI prefix are being finalized. The dedicated Journal website link above will be activated once hosting is configured.