Medical charities collaborate to ensure research results are shared

23 members of the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) are working in collaboration to develop and launch a joint publication platform, AMRC Open Research.  By removing traditional barriers and delays to publication, the new platform will help the charities maximise the value of the donations they receive by making it possible for every output from the research they fund to be rapidly and openly shared.

AMRC Open Research will use services developed by F1000 and a publication process first used on F1000Research. This process has since been adopted by many leading research funders and institutions around the world including Wellcome, the Gates Foundation and the African Academy of Sciences, who have recently launched their own platforms.

AMRC Open Research will provide a new publication option for researchers funded by the participating charities that gives them increased control over the process. As long as the researchers meet eligibility criteria, no editorial decisions are made based on the topic, perceived impact or outcome their articles. This enables them to able openly and immediately share all results from their charity funded research with the scientific community and beyond. Once published, articles will undergo invited open peer review by experts in the respective field.
By making articles available in a matter of days, rather than the typical months or years that traditional publishing can take, and by including access to the raw data, AMRC Open Research will help accelerate our understanding of conditions and diseases that affect so many lives.

All articles on AMRC Open Research will be published as open access enabling anyone to see the results of the research, including those living with or affected by the conditions being researched, the charities’ wider communities and the public. The expert peer review reports will also be posted alongside the articles, helping everyone understand the merit of the published work about health conditions and diseases.

Aisling Burnand, Chief Executive of AMRC, said: “All too often the results of research are published slowly, held behind paywalls, or never published at all. By launching this platform the participating charities are helping to ensure that all results of the research they fund can be rapidly and widely shared to limit duplication of effort, accelerate the progress of research and most importantly bring benefits to patients sooner.”

Rebecca Lawrence, Managing Director of F1000, said: “In coming together to launch AMRC Open Research, these 23 medical research charities are working to ensure that the money raised from marathons run, channels swam, and cakes sold, makes a real difference by providing a means for all results of research funded from these activities to be published for all to see. Only by having a fuller picture of research findings can we hope to make inroads against the diseases and medical conditions these charities are dedicated to.”

*The 23 participating charities are: Alzheimer's Research UK, Ataxia UK, Autistica, BRACE, Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group, Epilepsy Research UK, Macmillan Cancer Support, Meningitis Research Foundation, MQ: Transforming Mental Health, Multiple Sclerosis Society, National Eye Research Centre, National Osteoporosis Society, Pancreatic Cancer UK, Parkinson's UK, Pharmacy Research UK, Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability, Spinal Research, Stroke Association, Target Ovarian Cancer, The Brain Tumour Charity, The Cure Parkinson's Trust, The Lullaby Trust, and The Scar Free Foundation

Further commentary is available from Aisling Burnand in a blog post here:

Further commentary is available from Rebecca Lawrence in a blog post here:

Media contacts

Shane Canning
Head of Communications, F1000
Tel: +44 (0)20 7631 9197 Mob:  +44 (0)79 2058 6436
Email: shane.canning@f1000.com
 
Leonora Neale
Communications Officer, Association of Medical Research Charities
Tel: +44 (0)20 7685 2622 
Email: l.neale@amrc.org.uk
 

• F1000 provides a suite of services to support researchers in discovering literature, and then writing and communicating their own work. F1000Prime helps with literature discovery; F1000Workspace makes it easier to write and share articles; F1000Research provides an author-driven approach to the publication of research results in an immediate and transparent way. F1000 also works with funders and research institutions to ensure their grantees can publish the outputs of their funding in more rapid and open ways. https://f1000.com
• The Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) has been the national membership organisation for the health and medical research charity world for the last 30 years: https://www.amrc.org.uk/ 
• AMRC has over 140 members who all work to the same high standards ensuring that every pound they spend on research is invested in research of the very highest quality.
• In 2016, health and medical research charities: Invested £1.6bn in research here in the UK, financed capital projects worth £89m, and funded the salaries of at least 17,000 researchers.