Publishing in New Research Domains and the “Building a New Island” Analogy
There are many different types of research projects. Some research projects take an existing research area and contribute new insights about a known or new problem. Other research projects identify new research areas, ask fundamental questions about those new research areas, and then answer those questions. This post is about the latter — about research projects that establish new research areas (new research domains).
For context:
- My research style is often (though not always) to try to identify and work in new research areas.
- My research area is computer security, so anything I write should be taken with a grain of salt outside the area of computer security research or computer science broadly.
Back to the focus of this post: Establishing new research domains can be challenging. It can be challenging for multiple reasons, including:
- Identifying the new research domain and interesting questions within that domain;
- Determining how to make research progress in that new domain and then making said progress;
- Publishing research results in that new domain;
- Developing a research community around that new domain.
I wrote this post with the intent of offering some ideas and perspectives on bullet (3) above, though I comment some on the other bullets as well. In the future, I may write dedicated posts around these other bullets. In writing this post, I am trying to keep an audience of PhD students in mind.
Research areas are islands: An analogy.
When I think about research areas and the academic publication process, I often think about research areas as islands. Consider, for example, the call for papers of a peer-reviewed conference (e.g., the call for papers for USENIX Security 2025). The call for papers lists research areas of interest for the conference. Also, the program committee — the peer reviewers of papers — often identify as experts in one of more of these areas.
I like viewing these areas of interest as islands because, when thinking about submitting a paper to a conference, I often ask myself: to which island does this paper belong? Or, if the reviewers are inhabitants of the islands, which island’s inhabitants should read this paper?
When conducting research in an established domain or with an established methodology, it is often clear to what island the research belongs. In such cases, I often write / edit the paper with that island / that island’s inhabitants in mind. (After one has “written to an island” multiple times, the “write to the island” approach may become more intuitive and second nature, rather than explicit and intentional. In my case, I recall being very intentional about “writing to an island” when I first started writing papers.)
Sometimes, I may not make too much of a distinction between a small cluster of islands (e.g., different topics within a single conference), but I might make a distinction between different conferences in related fields. For example, within the broader computer security and privacy research community, USENIX Security, SOUPS, and PETS are all a little different. And, just how the rising and falling of an ocean tide can make two land masses disconnected or connected, sometimes, the exact shapes of each island and how they are connected vary as a community’s interests evolve.
The “building a new island” analogy: A new area
Now, what do we do if there is no island for the type of research that we are doing and trying to publish? This is where the “building a new island” analogy comes in. As one concrete example, consider the area of mixed-reality computer security.
Today, there is a research island for mixed-reality computer security, with numerous papers and entire conference sessions on the topic. 15 years ago, that was not the case. Nevertheless, we wanted to explore that as a research area. And by we, I mean Prof. Franziska Roesner, as she was the one who convinced me that mixed-reality computer security would be an important research domain in the future.
It took a long time to build this research area! We submitted our first paper on the topic in 2011, with David Molnar. We submitted that paper to a workshop that no longer exists, and the paper was rejected. At least one reviewer thought that the problems we were considering were too much like science fiction. An archived copy of that paper is available online. We continued to persevere. Eventually, a revision of that paper was accepted to appear in the April 2014 issue of the Communications of the ACM. We now have a long sequence of publications on the topic (see our list of publications on our Augmented Reality, Computer Security, and Privacy project web page). The field of mixed-reality computer security now exists. We wrote a 10-year retrospective about our journey, in a paper published at the 1st International Workshop on Security for XR and XR for Security (VR4Sec).
Of course, the world evolved along with our research — before we started our work, the Google Glass did not exist, and now there exist numerous mixed-reality headsets from multiple companies. Still, this is one example of how challenging it can be to publish in a new research area — where research islands do not already exist — and how perseverance and the continued exploration of those new areas can result in new islands emerging.
The “building a new island” analogy: A cross-disciplinary research perspective
I like to summarize the “building a new research island” analogy as follows:
If existing research areas are like islands, building a new research area is like throwing rocks into the water, over and over and over again. Those first rocks may be invisible to others. But, eventually, with enough rocks and enough effort, an island will emerge.
Those initial rocks might be papers that are rejected. They may be initial directions that were abandoned before paper submission for any number of reasons, including because of researcher’s self-doubts, or because the researcher envisions significant challenges with finishing the project or publishing on it as originally envisioned, or even because the initial direction was “rejected” by a team member or advisor. The initial rocks may also be papers that are accepted but that have yet to see the visibility and recognition that they will eventually receive after the “new research island” is a full, visible island.
Placing the island.
Keeping the “building a new island” analogy in mind, there are several ways that researchers can try to strategize for the “early emergence” of a new research island. One is island placement. One does not need to pick an arbitrary region of the ocean and try to create a new island. Rather, one can look for shallow bodies of water — perhaps shallow bodies of water close to an existing cluster of islands — and start throwing rocks there. In doing so, it will be much easier — and take much less time — to build a new island.
Another way to frame this perspective: Target publication venues in which scholars with similar interests are already publishing.
From a research and publication perspective, I additionally recommend that one know the sensitivities, interests, and methodologies of existing research communities, and write the new research paper with those sensitivities, interests, and methodologies in mind.
Said another way, if one is creating a new research island, situate it such that existing clusters of research islands recognize the features (e.g., the general topics or perspectives of the research or the methods used) and want to claim the new island as part of their cluster.
“Expand the island” or “create a land bridge” instead of “build a new island”.
Continuing the above discussion, sometimes when we are trying to explore highly interdisciplinary, new research areas that do not belong to any current island, we find it best to situate that work in the context of one specific island. That is, rather than try to create a new island equidistant from two existing islands, we decide to throw rocks in the low-water regions of one of the islands.
If we throw these rocks in the low-water region facing another island (another discipline connected to the new, interdisciplinary research area that we are trying to create), over time, we may eventually connect those two islands. This land bridge between the two islands will then be an above-water, visible publication area.
Additional thoughts.
It can be emotionally and logistically challenging to publish research in a new area. It can be hard to receive rejection after rejection for research that we believe is important but cannot convince reviewers. And it can be logistically challenging to do research in new disciplines if one has external constraints, e.g., a desire to publish one more paper before graduation. In acknowledging these challenges, I am not suggesting that one should not pursue such types of research projects! Rather, with this whole post, I want to acknowledge the challenges with publishing the results of research projects in new areas — it can very much feel like throwing rocks into the ocean that no one ever sees. While some under-water islands never fully manifest into visible land masses, it can be rewarding when they do!
And some more images.
I really like these visuals that Inyoung Cheong created a year or so ago, to capture the challenges and ultimate reward of creating a new “research island”. I’ve included these images with permission.
Acknowledgements.
I learned so much about the PhD process from my own advisor, Mihir Bellare. After obtaining a faculty position, I continued to develop my own philosophy on advising and the PhD process through the advising my own PhD students. Much of my thoughts on advising and the PhD process have also been shaped through the co-advising of PhD students with UW Security Lab co-director Franziska Roesner. Thank you to Inyoung Cheong for insightful comments on an earlier version of this post and for the illustrations. Thank you to all the students and postdocs that I have advised, past and present!
