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Hot on the heels of announcing our first society channel with the ISCB, we are equally as delighted to reveal we will be partnering with the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF) to publish a new channel called the INCF Community journal, which will launch in August [See press release].

Now becoming an established field that is experiencing an exponential growth, neuroinformatics combines neuroscience and informatics research to develop and apply the advanced tools and approaches that are essential for major advances in understanding the structure and function of the brain. The INCF catalyzes and coordinates the global development of the field and one of its many goals is to promote the sharing of data and computing resources with the international research community.

F1000 and the INCF have collaborated and supported each other over the past few years, and through our relationship we have always seen eye to eye when it comes to making research and data openly available for use by others. So after some discussion of how we could work together to make this possible for neuroinformatics, we came up with the idea of creating the INCF Community Journal. This will be the first time the INCF has had its own publication, and the thinking is that by using F1000Research’s open science publishing model, they will be able to help meet their goals of advancing understanding of the brain through collaborative research.

The channel will capture all the research outputs from the INCF Neuroinformatics Congress and INCF workshops, plus publish research articles from the broader neuroinformatics field. There will be no restriction on size or perceived impact with regards what articles can be published, ranging from method papers, software tools, data notes and single-result papers up to full-blown research articles and reviews. All published articles will be transparently peer-reviewed through our invited post-publication peer review process, and as usual, those that achieve an adequate level of positive review from the referees will be indexed in PubMed and other major bibliographic databases.

In addition to articles, the channel will also provide a place to share research in other formats such as posters and slides, and this aspect will be a key component in helping build this space for the community. The INCF consists of many National Nodes, which are institutions or networks that represent each member country of the INCF. The nodes are established to coordinate neuroinformatics activity within a country and play an active role in formulating and implementing INCF Programs. This large network means that much of the research is carried out in many different locations across the globe, so by having a central place to showcase all the research outputs of the INCF programs means the whole neuroinformatics community will benefit.

It’s currently all hands on deck here at F1000Research as we prepare to reveal some major new developments to the platform in early July. Our two new society channels are a taste of what’s to come, but a running theme you may have already identified is that as publishers we are taking a step back from tradition and are allowing societies, communities, organisations etc. to create their own personalised areas that meet their needs, not ours. Who are we to be arbiters of someone else’s research? That’s not what we think a publisher’s role should be. We think publishers should be well oiled machines that provide a service with the tools and resources necessary to get scientific research into the public eye as quickly and efficiently as possible. Stay tuned.