A “controversial ideas” journal where researchers can publish articles under pseudonyms will be launched next year by an Oxford University academic.

The new journal is a response to a rise in researchers being criticised and silenced by those who disagree with them, according to Jeff McMahan, a professor of moral philosophy at Oxford.

“There is an increasing tendency that I see within academia and outside for people to try to suppress views they don’t like and treat them as wicked and unspeakable, rather than confront those views and refute them,” he said.

While controversial research has always attracted criticism, Prof McMahan told how the attack on intellectual discussion and fear of self-censorship has become more acute in recent years.

The phenomenon of attempting to shut down views you disagree with has become “very pronounced” among young people and those on the Left, he told The Daily Telegraph.

“Occasionally the fear of reaction is from the right and other times it is from the left”, Prof McMahan said, adding that academics also fear being censured by their own university administrations too.

He cited the example of a fellow Oxford academic, Professor Nigel Biggar, being “targeted” after he suggested that people should have “pride” about aspects of their imperialist past.