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UK health R&D funder launches open-access platform

                        

Initiative allows researchers to quickly publish “any research information” including incremental and negative findings

The National Institute for Health and Care Research today launched an open-access publishing platform to allow researchers to “rapidly” publish any research information.

This includes incremental findings, case reports and even negative findings, in order to “support the entire life cycle of research”, the NIHR said.

The UK government’s health R&D funder added that making findings rapidly and freely available would allow other researchers to build on new ideas “straight away” and “avoid the risk of duplication, so that new treatments and interventions will become available quicker”.

The platform, called NIHR Open Research, uses publisher F1000’s post-publication open-peer-review model, which gives users the chance to look at who the reviewers as well as read their reviews.

Following a pilot, the NIHR has now opened the platform up to all types of NIHR-funded and supported research.

The NIHR said research published on the platform would also include links to all supporting data, allowing reanalyses, replication and reuse, as well as making it easier for researchers to collaborate.

Chief executive of the NIHR, Lucy Chappell, said the platform “ensures that all types of findings from NIHR-funded and supported research can be made freely available”.

She added: “Researchers will now be able to learn from the many small steps made by their peers, as well as the big ones, and promising findings can be accelerated into benefits for patients and the public.”