F1000Research

F1000Research F1000Research is an open access publishing platform founded in 2012 that offers immediate publication of articles followed by open peer review. The platform was established by a team including Vitek Tracz, and has been associated with initiatives and organizations such as Wellcome Trust, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, European Research Council, National Institutes of Health, Medical Research Council (United Kingdom), Max Planck Society, Cancer Research UK, Royal Society, European Molecular Biology Organization, and INSERM. Its model contrasts with traditional journals like Nature (journal), Science (journal), The Lancet, Cell (journal), PLOS Medicine, and BMJ (journal), drawing attention from stakeholders including COPE and funders such as National Science Foundation, UK Research and Innovation, Wellcome, and Gates Foundation.

History

F1000Research was launched in 2012 by Vitek Tracz with a team linked to companies and individuals including BioMed Central, Springer Nature, John Wiley & Sons, Elsevier, PLOS, and advisors connected to institutes such as University College London, Harvard University, University of Cambridge, Oxford University, Imperial College London, and Stanford University. Early milestones involved collaborations with funders like Wellcome Trust, NIH, European Commission, and projects such as Human Genome Project-era initiatives, intersecting with discussions at meetings including Open Access Week, Royal Society Open Science, and conferences like ICMJE forums. The platform expanded its editorial boards with scholars affiliated to University of California, San Francisco, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Karolinska Institutet, ETH Zurich, Weizmann Institute of Science, University of Toronto, McGill University, Seoul National University, and University of Melbourne.

Editorial and Peer Review Model

F1000Research employs post-publication open peer review where referees are named and reports are published alongside articles, a system compared to approaches advocated by Committee on Publication Ethics, OpenAIRE, CrossRef, ORCID, DOAJ, and COPE guidance. Editorial oversight involves subject experts drawn from institutions such as Johns Hopkins University, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Mayo Clinic, Karolinska Institutet, National Institutes of Health, Institut Pasteur, Salk Institute, Riken, Max Planck Institute, and ETH Zurich. Peer reviewers and editors often hold affiliations with organizations like Academy of Medical Sciences (UK), Royal Society, National Academy of Sciences (US), European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The workflow integrates identifiers and metadata via services provided by CrossRef, ORCID, PubMed Central, Scopus, and Web of Science, and follows transparency practices seen in policies from NIH, Wellcome Trust, European Commission Horizon 2020, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Publication Types and Platform Features

The platform accepts diverse outputs including research articles, data notes, method articles, case reports, software tool papers, and registered reports, similar in scope to venues like GigaScience, Scientific Data, F1000Prime-adjacent recommendations, PLOS ONE, eLife, and PeerJ. It supports versioning, data deposition with connectors to repositories such as Zenodo, Figshare, Dryad, ArrayExpress, Gene Expression Omnibus, and European Nucleotide Archive, and integrates persistent identifiers like DOI, ORCID, PubMed ID, and CrossMark. Platform features include article-level metrics drawing on sources such as Altmetric, Dimensions, Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and institutional repositories tied to University of Oxford, Yale University, Princeton University, University of Chicago, and Columbia University.

Indexing, Impact, and Metrics

Indexing pathways have connected the platform to services including PubMed Central, MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, CrossRef, DOAJ, Dimensions, and Altmetric. Citation and usage metrics are tracked alongside alternative indicators employed by funders like Wellcome Trust and NIH, and compared with citation patterns seen in journals such as Nature Communications, Scientific Reports, PLOS Biology, BMJ Open, and Lancet Global Health. Impact assessments reference authors affiliated with Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, UCSF, Karolinska Institutet, and Imperial College London and are considered by institutions involved in research evaluation such as Research England, Times Higher Education, and QS World University Rankings analyses.

Open Science and Policies

The platform promotes open data, open methods, and open peer review aligning with initiatives from OpenAIRE, European Open Science Cloud, Plan S, cOAlition S, FAIR principles, Creative Commons, SPARC, Sherpa/RoMEO, and funders including Wellcome Trust, Gates Foundation, European Commission, and National Institutes of Health. It implements licenses like Creative Commons Attribution and Creative Commons CC0 and encourages data sharing consistent with repositories such as Figshare, Zenodo, Dryad, EMBL-EBI, NCBI, and EBI services.

Criticism and Controversies

Critiques have focused on the post-publication review model and comparisons with editorial practices at Nature (journal), Science (journal), The Lancet, PLOS Medicine, and eLife, with commentators from bodies including COPE, Open Research Funders Group, NISO, Wellcome Trust, NIH, UK Research and Innovation, and academic leaders at University of Cambridge, Oxford University, Harvard University, Yale University, University of California, Berkeley, and MIT debating quality control, indexing eligibility, and reputational effects. Specific controversies involved debates over indexing in MEDLINE and listings in Web of Science and Scopus, and aired in venues such as Retraction Watch, Scholarly Kitchen, and panels at Open Access Week and ICMJE meetings.