Research Integrity and Peer Review Journal launches this week

Research on ethics, reporting and evaluation of research found a home this week, as BioMed Central launched the new Research Integrity and Peer Review Journal. Endorsed by the EQUATOR Network and the ISMTE, and headed up by Stephanie Harriman, Maria Kowalczuk, Iveta Simera and Liz Wager, the new journal welcomes submissions on all aspects of integrity in the research and publication process.

Here at the EQUATOR Network, we work to improve the transparency and quality of health research, primarily using reporting guidelines. We are excited that research on these all-important guidelines and on all of the components of research publication will now have a dedicated journal. The new Research Integrity and Peer Review journal will bring researchers from all corners of the health research world together to improve how we conduct and publish our work.

As the editors-in-chief of Research Integrity and Peer Review say in their inaugural editorial, “To reap the benefits of research, we need to understand it properly. We need to consider questions such as what causes research to give misleading results, what tempts researchers to cheat, and how best to report and disseminate research findings. In other words, we need research into research, and we need somewhere to publish these findings.”

Research Integrity and Peer Review will initially use an open peer review model, to promote transparency in the peer review process. Authors will know who their peer reviewers are, and published articles will be accompanied by reviewer reports and made openly accessible to all readers. However, the journal editors-in-chief will be following the latest research on peer review and how best to conduct it.

The journal’s launch and inaugural crop of papers have already received much attention, with stories in Times Higher Education, Retraction Watch and The Scientist, among others. EQUATOR Network readers may be particularly interested in a review of the SAGER guidelines for sex and gender equity in research and a review of how conflicts of interest are disclosed in biomedical research.