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JMIR is now also offering peer review of research protocols and grant proposals (and optionally publishes protocols).

• Would you like to have an external expert opinion on the methods before you start research?
• Would you like to have the opportunity to identify and improve weaknesses in a grant proposal before actual submission?
• Would you like to demonstrate to funding agencies that your protocol went through prior expert review and that experts agree on the soundness of your methods or importance of research?
• Would you like to be able to proof - through publication of you protocol - priority of ideas and methods, and/or solicit potential collaborators?
• Would you like to submit a funding proposal or publish subsequent papers of your study without having to explain the methods each time in detail, but by just citing the published protocol? 

If the answer to one of the questions above is "yes", then you should consider to submit your protocol or grant proposal to JMIR for peer-review (before or after you send it to a granting agency).

We now offer - on a fee-for-service basis - a peer-review/consulting service for eHealth researchers who may want to get input or advice from senior researchers (peer-reviewers) for their research protocol or grant proposal, or who want to publish their ongoing or planned research. We will approach one or more peer-reviewers (who may be nominated by the submitting author) and pay them a honorarium to prepare a thorough peer-review report. The report will be edited or complemented with additional remarks from the editor commenting on issues like possibility to publish the protocol or the results in JMIR. Authors may or may not opt to publish the protocol. 

The peer review and optional publication of protocols are separate processes with separate fees associated with it.

Authors may opt for

• peer-review only: Author may have the protocol peer reviewed only and not proceed to publication. The option of "peer review only" might be used by some investigators to obtain peer-review input before submission to a funding body while reserving disclosure of the research plan until after funding.
• peer-review and subsequent publication: Author elects to publish the protocol after peer-review. This is for authors who prefer to publish in order to be able to cite a fully peer-reviewed research protocol in a funding proposal, or to claim priority of the research ideas outlined in the protocol. Other authors may however not decide to go ahead with publication but only use the peer-reviewer comments to improve the protocol.
  

Note that peer review and publication of protocols has a different cost structure from regular article submissions to JMIR.

For protocol submissions and peer-review, JMIR is introducing a $500 levy, called Protocol Review Fee (PRF), payable upon submission, which will cover the costs of honoraria to peer reviewers.JMIR needs to recover the costs of peer reviews of protocols which are not published, while researchers might view the submission fee as payment for value received in the peer review.

In addition, the regular APF (Article Processing Fee) as described in the Instructions for Authors will apply to recover the copyediting and typesetting costs only in the event of publication, should the author decide to proceed with publication.

Peer reviewers of protocols will be asked to use different standards from those used for peer-reviewed articles. There will be no "accept" or "decline" decision except in cases where the protocol is off-topic (see journal scope) or is clearly ethically or scientifically flawed. Reviewers are asked to comment on the existence of potential flaws which might threaten the validity of the research, to make suggestions for overcoming these flaws if they exist, or to suggest minor improvements to the research plan or the writing.

Submitting authors will receive (usually within 4-6 weeks) one (or more) peer-review report(s) and can choose to 1) not to publish the protocol (in some cases authors may not want to reveal ongoing research, or at least wait until the project becomes funded), 2) to respond to the reviewers comments and to resubmit the revised protocol for publication (if major changes are necessary an additional peer-review with a resubmission fee may be necessary), 3) not to make any changes, but to publish the submitted protocol alongside with the reviewers' comments.

Submission process

The protocol or grant proposal can be in any format stipulated eg. by the granting agency. An abstract is highly desirable. Protocols are submitted through the Manuscript Submission System. Be sure to enter the paper in the Protocols Section (in the first step of submission) in order to have the right submission fee (US $ 500) apply.

Please note that in order to fast track the Protocol submissions, the Fast-Track Fee can be paid at the end of the submission process (optional).

Summary: Costs involved in submitting protocols or grant proposals for peer-review

Reference
Eysenbach G. Peer Review and Publication of Research Protocols and Proposals: A Role for Open Access Journals. J Med Internet Res 2004;6(3):e37
http://www.jmir.org/2004/3/e37/