JOTE welcomes all rejected grant applications for three reasons. First, they are valuable in and of themselves as pieces of preliminary research. Second, they contain metadata that catalogue the ideas, hypotheses, and theoretical perspectives within an academic field. Third, they offer historians insight into the non-linear development of scientific ideas and can therefore be used as metadata on the trends and biases in the process of awarding grants. To stimulate (comparative) research, JOTE applies a unifying template to all the grant applications. To maximise transparency, JOTE also publishes the reviewer’s comments, rebuttal, and decision without changing the content, unless the anonymity of a reviewer cannot be guaranteed.