Featuring new open access deals and fee models, developments in sharing research data, the UK MRC’s commitment to disclosing clinical trial results, and insights into the peer review process and conference guidelines.
New open access deal for UK institutions via Wiley
A new agreement made between Wiley and Jisc allows researchers at UK institutions to publish open access and also enables them to access subscription content in all Wiley journals, free of charge. This is due to take effect at the end of March 2020.
Coronavirus: a preprint review platform via Nature
In response to the novel coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19), Nature has set up a new open source platform, Outbreak Science Rapid PREview, with support from the Wellcome Trust Open Research Fund. The platform offers a means for anyone with an ORCID iD to review coronavirus-related content from the arXiv, bioRxiv and medRxiv repositories.
The UK MRC doubles down on its commitment to transparency via TranspariMED
As part of its commitment to the World Health Organization’s joint statement on public disclosure of results from clinical trials, the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) is strengthening its policies and developing a monitoring system to ensure that grant recipients are adhering to funding requirements.
Insights on the open access process via Gates Open Research
Ashley Farley, Associate Officer of Knowledge and Research Services at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, shares her insights into the importance of public visibility of the peer review process and on how it triggers conversation thus preventing research from remaining static.
Piloting a new open access fee model via Elsevier
Steffen Huck, Professor of Economics at University College London and co-editor of the journal European Economic Review Plus, is trialling a new system according to which authors are charged open access fees only if their article is selected for peer review rather than at submission.
COVID-19: a silver lining for open science? via Los Angeles Times
The rapid sharing of COVID-19 research has helped speed up both drug and vaccine development. The significant expansion in public data sharing aimed at tackling COVID-19 demonstrates that the for-profit publication model just doesn’t work in times of crisis.
Good practice recommendations for conferences via The Publication Plan
Jackie Marchington, Director of Global Operations at Caudex and member of the Good Practice for Conference Abstracts and Presentations (GPCAP) working group, shares her thoughts on the impact of the GPCAP guidelines. Her key message is that conference deliverables need to be held to the same ethical and transparency standards as manuscripts.
