Wellcome to launch bold publishing initiative

Wellcome Open Research will use services developed by F1000Research to make research outputs available faster and in ways that support reproducibility and transparency. It will enable Wellcome grantees to publish a wide variety of outputs from standard research articles and data sets, through to null and negative results.

The platform will use a model of immediate publication followed by transparent invited peer review, with inclusion of supporting data, enabling researchers to reanalyse, replicate and reuse the data, all of which will help to improve the reproducibility and reliability of the research it publishes. 

Once articles pass peer review, they will be indexed in major bibliographic databases and deposited in PubMed Central and Europe PMC. Wellcome Open Research will disseminate results almost immediately, ensuring critical advances in urgent areas of research are not held up by lengthy journal processes.

The transparent peer review process will encourage constructive feedback from experts focussed on helping the authors improve their work, rather than on making an editorial decision to accept or reject an article. 

Wellcome Open Research is the latest in a number of initiatives by Wellcome that aim to improve the way research findings are disseminated, including support for the pioneering open access journal eLife.

Robert Kiley, Wellcome’s Head of Digital Services, comments: "This model shifts towards wholly open research publishing, and will bring benefits to researchers and institutions, as well as to society more broadly.

"One of the long-term aims of this approach is to start a shift in research and researcher assessment away from journal-based measures and towards direct assessment of the output itself, whether it be an article, or in another form such as a dataset or software tool."

Rebecca Lawrence, Managing Director of F1000 says: "With F1000Research we have demonstrated a publishing model that truly focuses on serving authors and their associated research communities, removing many of the problematic barriers faced during the traditional publishing process. We are excited to be working with Wellcome and look forward to supporting their grantees in sharing their research findings."

For further information on Wellcome Open Research, including updates on submission criteria and on when submissions will be accepted, visit wellcomeopenresearch.org.