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Thanks to our post-publication peer review model which helps reduce traditional publishing delays, there’s still time for HRB-funded researchers to publish findings with HRB Open Research this year.

To help you with the process, we’ve created a checklist with the steps you need to take to get your research ready for submission.

Step 1: Check your eligibility to submit to HRB Open Research

There are a number of criteria that publications need to meet to be eligible to publish on HRB Open Research:

• All research must have at least one author who is a recipient, or has been a recipient in the past, of a grant from the Health Research Board. Have your grant ID ready, as you will need to enter it on the submission form.
• All articles must be original and not duplications of work that has been published previously or is currently under consideration or review elsewhere for publication (excluding work posted on a pre-print server). If there is significant overlap with another paper, this must be cited in the article and mentioned on submission.
• All listed authors must have made a clear contribution to an article. Anyone who has contributed but does not meet the criteria for authorship can be listed in the ‘Acknowledgements’ section.
• All research must be scholarly work based on scientific, academic, or clinical investigation.

Step 2: Prepare your paper

Our editorial team undertakes thorough pre-publication checks for each article that is submitted, and there are a few things to prepare for your paper to ensure it meets these pre-publication requirements.

Article guidelines

HRB Open Research accepts a broad range of traditional and non-traditional article types for publishing, from Research Articles and Systematic Reviews to Method Articles, Data Notes and Software Tool Articles.

Each of these article types has its own requirements to meet, so it’s important that authors check the respective article guidelines for their work.

For example, clinical trials within a Clinical Practice Article or Case Report need to be registered in an approved register.

Ethical approval and consent

All articles must comply with our ethical policies.

For example, work must have been conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki for research involving humans, all appropriate ethics approval must be obtained in advance of the study where required, and any studies categorised by social groupings such as race, gender, or disabilities must include a justification for the choice of definition and categories.

Competing interest statement

All papers must include a competing interest statement. Where competing interests are identified, this will not inhibit publication but will help to provide full transparency for reviewers and readers.

Language quality

Articles on HRB Open Research need to be well-written, and language quality should maximise understanding of the research. If we think an article needs language editing to improve readability, our editorial team will recommend professional copyediting services before the paper can be accepted.

Reproducibility

All articles must adhere to standards of reporting guidelines to ensure they have provided a clear and comprehensive description of research, including clear methodological details, to make it easier for others to assess and reproduce the work.

These standards of reporting can vary by article type, for example specific guidelines for Systematic Reviews and clinical trials, so it’s important to review these before submission.

Step 3: Prepare and deposit your data

Open data is a key element of open research. Not only enabling reproducibility of research by the wider academic community, open data also enables greater transparency in the full research process, boosts research visibility, can increase citations, and improves trust in findings.

As a result, HRB Open Research requires all data to comply with our open data policy. This ensures that all underlying data is made open where possible.

FAIR Guidelines

HRB Open Research is committed to open data and endorses the FAIR Data Principles alongside our data policy to achieve this.

The FAIR Principles provide a framework for data to be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.

However, we recognize that not all data can be made open, for example confidential, ethical or proprietary third-party data, and we have specific policies in place to account for this. Please see the data policy for more information.

Preparing your data

To meet these guidelines, there are a number of steps to take:

• Prepare your data for sharing
• Deposit your data in an appropriate repository
• Add a Data Availability Statement to your article

One of the most common reasons why articles are rejected from publication on our platform is that the supporting data is not openly available, so we strongly encourage all authors to review these guidelines and our data policy before submission.

Steps 4 and 5: submission and identifying peer reviewers

Once you’ve prepared your paper and data, you can submit your research for publication using our simple online form.

As part of this, you’ll need to suggest five suitable peer reviewers. You’ll have the choice to select reviewers using the HRB Open Research reviewer finding algorithm, which scans the article and reference list to identify researchers who may be suitable to review, or you can choose your own reviewers. Read our tips for finding article reviewers for your research.

The editorial team will facilitate the peer review process and contact reviewers on the author’s behalf and may also suggest suitable reviewers where required.

Publish your research

Ready to join the 2,000+ HRB-funded authors already publishing with HRB Open Research? Submit your research today.

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