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Today marks a new dawn for health-related research in Ireland as HRB Open Research publishes its’ first articles. As the lead funder of health research in Ireland, we are proud to join two of the largest health-related funders in the world – Wellcome and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on this journey of open research. Our Interim Chief Executive, Mairead O’Driscoll, set out our vision for HRB Open Research late last year. With today’s launch, we are starting to see that vision being put into action.

We called on our researchers who believe in openness and transparency to stand up for research quality and use the system we have built. There is no conflict between being open and being successful. We are delighted with the initial response.

HRB Open Research launches today with 8 articles covering topics from mental health to cervical screening. A wide range of article types are also represented from more traditional Research Articles to Study Protocols.

Increasing value and reducing research waste

Research waste is seen as one of the major issues facing stakeholders working in the research ecosystem at the moment. It has been estimated that up to half of biomedical research articles remain unpublished. It is therefore heartening to see a research article from Sara Burke of the Centre for Health Policy and Management at Trinity College Dublin that tackles this issue head on. This article by Sara and colleagues had been previously relegated to a desk drawer, having not found a home in a journal. This research article has now been published and is fully citable, becoming a part of the scientific literature.

Engaging the public in research plans

A Study Protocol published today supports a key focus area for us at the moment: public and patient involvement in research. The protocol by Éidín Ní Shé and colleagues from UCD explores the mechanisms that are important to actively engage groups in health and social care research who are seldom heard– the results of which will be translated into action as part of the UCD PPI Ignite Connect programme.

Similarly, in another Study Protocol published today, Deirdre O’Donnell, UCD, and colleagues outline their plan for developing an educational tool to promote the understanding and adoption of assisted decision making among healthcare professionals. The authors expect the outputs of this project to impact the behaviour of healthcare professionals in relation to engaging patients in both treatment decision-making and healthcare planning.

If we can empower the public to understand what is involved in this research, they are more likely to participate in it. The open access model and transparent processes used by HRB Open Research means that anyone can read all the articles and their associated reviews from peers when they come in, without restriction.

Embracing new research outputs

Given the diverse nature of the work our grantees are involved in, HRB Open Research supports many article types which enable sharing of any results quickly. This includes the more traditional article types, such as the Systematic Review from Jonathan Moran at Trinity College Dublin and his co-authors examining the evidence around eHealth to promote physical activity in patients with mental health conditions.

Less-traditional article types include Data Notes – brief descriptions of research datasets that include details of why and how the data were created, and Open Letters –  short, peer-reviewed articles discussing policies relevant to a broad research community, such as the piece from John O’Leary and colleagues at Trinity College Dublin on cervical screening.

What next?

Now we have published articles that can inform the work of others, we look forward to seeing the first transparent post publication reviews appear alongside the articles like they do on F1000Research. This is an exciting step because reviewers then receive credit for their work and the reviews are fully citable, and can be added to ORCID and Publons profiles. We are working closely with F1000 to ensure various bibliometric databases such as PubMed will index HRB Open Research articles when they pass peer review

Today is a major step forward for the HRB and for our researchers. I hope you will join me in congratulating today’s authors on being the first to publish their research in this new way. I’m pleased that the innovative culture at the HRB enables us to lead Ireland on the open research journey. If today is a new dawn, that means things are only beginning, so stay tuned for more to come!