Call for Papers: We Publish Your Grant Proposal or Protocol!
Developing a grant proposal or writing a study protocol can be as much work as writing a paper - but it is often not "rewarding" as it cannot be cited (e.g. in a CV) as publication. This is about to change, as we now publish protocols and grant proposals! Publishing protocols does not only benefit the authors, but also the research community at large: For other researchers, having access to protocols of ongoing studies is invaluable to avoid duplication of efforts, and provides opportunities to learn from winning proposals and carefully developed protocols. It also opens up the possibility to give feedback early in an ongoing or planned study (e.g. pointing out flaws in the search strategy of a systematic review, or pointing the authors to studies that should be included in a meta-analysis or scoping review). JMIR has not published protocols until now, but we are happy to announce the birth of our latest spin-off journal, "JMIR Research Protocols" (http://www.researchprotocols.org). JMIR Research Protocols publishes all kinds of grant proposals and protocols (funded and unfunded), e.g. a protocol for a systematic review or scoping review, a protocol or grant application for a randomized trial, an interview guide for qualitative research, or a formative evaluation with a plan for further research of a technology application. Since the launch of this journal a few days ago (early April) we have already received a dozen submissions, so we know that we are onto something and seem to fill a gap. Papers published in JMIR Research Protocols will adhere to the same quality standards as papers published in JMIR, will be carefully copyedited and deposited in PubMed Central / PubMed. And if the protocol/grant proposal is already reviewed (and reviewer comments are uploaded during submission), then we are granting a 50% discount on the Article Processing Fee. As an introductory offer, authors also received 20$ off if they submit subsequent papers based on the protocol in JMIR. Please submit your protocol at http://www.researchprotocols.org/author (note that you can use the same username/password as for JMIR.org).