JMIR Research Protocols (JRP, ISSN 1929-0748) is a unique PubMed and Scopus-indexed journal, publishing peer-reviewed, openly accessible research ideas and grant proposals, study and trial protocols, reports of ongoing research, current methods and approaches, and preliminary results from pilot studies or formative research informing the design of medical and health-related research and technology innovations.
In 2023, JMIR Research Protocols received an inaugural Journal Impact Factor™: 1.7 (Source: Journal Citation Reports™ from Clarivate, 2023).
While the original focus was on eHealth studies, JRP now publishes protocols and grant proposals in all areas of medicine, and their peer-review reports, if available (preliminary results from pilot studies, early results, and formative research should now be published in JMIR Formative Research).
While the original focus was on the design of medical and health-related research and technology innovations, JRP publishes research protocols, proposals, feasibility studies, methods and early results in all areas of medical and health research.
JRP is fully open access, with full-text articles deposited in PubMed Central.
Publishing research protocols, grant proposals, pilot/feasibility studies and early reports of ongoing and planned work encourages collaboration and early feedback, and reduces duplication of effort.
JRP is compatible with the concept of "Registered Reports" and since May 2018, published protocols receive a Registered Report Identifier (What is a Registered Report Identifier?) and acceptance of the subsequent results paper is "in principle" guaranteed in any JMIR journal and partner journals - see What is a Registered Report?.
JRP will be a valuable resource for researchers who want to learn about current research methodologies and how to write a winning grant proposal.
JRP creates an early scientific record for researchers who have developed novel methodologies, software, innovations or elaborate protocols.
JRP provides a "dry-run" for peer-review of the final results paper, and allows feedback/critique of the methods, often while they still can be fixed.
JRP faciliates subsequent publication of results demonstrating that the methodology has already been reviewed, and reduces the effort of writing up the results, as the protocol can be easily referenced.
JRP demonstrates to reviewers of subsequent results papers that authors followed and adhered to carefully developed and described a-priori methods.
Studies whose protocols or grant proposals have been accepted in JMIR Res Protoc are "in principle accepted" for subsequent publication of results in other JMIR journals as long as authors adhere to their original protocol - regardless of study results (even if they are negative), reducing publication bias in medicine.
Authors publishing their protocols in JMIR Res Protoc will receive a 20% discount on the article processing fee if they publish their results in another journal of the JMIR journal family (for example, JMIR for ehealth studies, i-JMR for others).
Need more reasons? Read the Knowledge Base article on "Why should I publish my protocol/grant proposal"!
JMIR Research Protocols is indexed in National Library of Medicine (NLM)/MEDLINE, Sherpa Romeo, DOAJ, PubMed Central, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science(WoS)/ESCI/SCIE, and EBSCO.