Blog

Publishing ImpleMentAll

Thu. 29. Aug 2019 13:23

We, in IMA, are doing a lot of research! Most of it revolves around the core of the project; developing the ItFits-toolkit, evaluating it, etc. However, the consortium partners also do other research more loosely related to IMA, and this often results in publications. In this blog post, we will take a closer look on the IMA Publication Committee to understand their purpose in the project, who they are, and why they are so important.

We love it when our consortium partners succeed in their research and obtain publishable results, but when the publications are related to the results of our project, we need to ensure that the integrity of IMA as well as the validity and reliability of the trials are protected. Therefore, we established the IMA Publication Committee to review and give feedback on project-related publication proposals for planned submissions to scientific journals.

The committee consists of our project coordinator, communications manager, scientific coordinator, operational coordinator, WP leaders of the ‘Implementation management and knowledge transfer’ and ‘Innovation and dissemination management’ work packages, as well as a few other key partners of IMA.

The main idea behind the formation of the publication committee was to provide the consortium with some guidance, to ensure transparency, and to make sure all incoming proposals are well aligned in terms of content to prevent overlap of topics. In this way, all publications related to IMA fit into a coherent scheme, which ensures a nice and uniform line of communication.

Also in order to ensure a uniform line of communication, the publication committee’s first job in IMA was to create a detailed set of defined publication procedures. These guidelines make it easier for all consortium members to publish their proposals, but most importantly, they make it easier for early-stage researchers to become authors and co-authors of ImpleMentAll-related publications.

“The IMA project is a highly collaborative project. It aims to go beyond the state of the art in both applied mental health research as well as implementation science. Procedures such as streamlining scientific publication is another mechanism facilitating team work and providing equal opportunity, as well as safeguarding methodological rigor and relevance of the research proposed,” says Christiaan Vis, Scientific Coordinator.

Currently, two submissions are in preparation and will be submitted for publication in scientific journals soon, one of which is the study protocol outlining the IMA trial. Follow us on Twitter, @EU_ImpleMentAll, to stay up to date on these publications and many more articles to be published by the ImpleMentAll consortium.

As the ImpleMentAll project has been funded by the European Commission in the context of the Horizon 2020 framework programme, all publications will be submitted to internationally peer-reviewed open access journals. This way, other researchers can expand on existing research results, improving the overall quality of results. Furthermore, open access publishing promotes collaboration between researchers and avoids duplication of outputs, leading to greater efficiency. Another benefit of publishing in open access journals is that results cannot only be accessed by individuals affiliated with research institutions and universities, but also by the general public, resulting in improved transparency of scientific progress. A large-scale, international study has shown that the benefits of open access publishing are perceived by many scientists from all over the world. For further information on this topic see the summary published by the European Commission in their H2020 Online Manual.