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As the new Publisher of F1000 Platforms, I’m excited to announce that Wellcome Open Research has launched its online submission system, representing the first funder publishing platform to follow the F1000Research publishing model. It is a new service that has been developed for Wellcome-funded researchers to enjoy the benefits of wholly open publishing. The platform is supported by an expert Advisory Board, all of whom have a strong interest in open research and in improving the way research findings are disseminated.

“Open research drives innovation and discovery, promotes transparency, and improves trust and reproducibility”, Wellcome Open Research Advisory Board Member, Jim Smith – Francis Crick Institute.

Wellcome-funded researchers now have a place to rapidly publish any of their results in a wide range of article types, from more traditional narrative-based articles to methods, datasets, protocols, incremental findings and negative/null results. The platform will publish across all the topics that Wellcome funds from biomedical science, population health and applied research to humanities and social science, and including original research in public engagement and arts projects.

Why is this different from yet another journal?

Wellcome Open Research represents a publishing venue that is truly researcher-led. Wellcome are providing grantees with a platform where they as authors are in control of what they publish, and where they play an integral role in the publication process from submission through to the completion of peer review. See here how the publication process works: https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/about.

Immediate publication saves time, speeds up the sharing of new findings and increases the time that articles are available for citation. In addition, open research publishing increases visibility and maximizes the societal impact of the research.

“Collaboration and knowledge transfer on a regional, national and international level can be significantly boosted through open research practices”, Wellcome Open Research Advisory Board Member, Sarah Teichmann, Sanger Institute

There is also a large focus on making data available to improve the reproducibility of research. Any data underlying the results will be made available so that other researchers can analyse and use it, and so they can ultimately try to reproduce the published results.

“Wellcome Open Research demonstrates a commitment to encouraging reproducible research by encouraging publication of data and methods alongside research papers”, Wellcome Open Research Advisory Board Member, Dorothy Bishop, University of Oxford.

Wellcome Open Research will also remove the usual burden for authors of asking them for payment; articles published on this platform will incur Article Processing Charges (APC) of between $135 and $900, which will be covered directly by Wellcome.

The full launch will happen in November when we will publish the first articles and begin to demonstrate that the future of sharing one’s work can be significantly enhanced through author-led, open research publishing. Watch this space.