Have you developed a new or improved research method that could change how studies are conducted in your field? In today’s fast-moving scientific world, sharing methodological innovations is just as important as publishing research findings. Method Articles offer researchers a dedicated way to document and share their technical advances, ensuring that these valuable contributions don’t get lost in traditional research papers.
In the following blog post, we outline what Method Articles are, why publishing a Method Article can be beneficial to your research journey, and highlight some recent Method Articles published on Open Research Europe.
What are Method Articles?
Method Articles provide researchers with a straightforward way to share new experimental, observational, or computational methods. These publications require detailed documentation of how you developed your method, why you created it, and its effectiveness. This helps other researchers understand and use your work. Whether you’ve built new data collection techniques, improved existing procedures, or found fresh ways to apply established methods, Method Articles focus on the method itself rather than research results. They welcome technical innovations, such as experimental tools, data analysis software, and medical devices, including drug delivery systems.
You can publish Method Articles on Open Research Europe for completely new methods, significant improvements to existing ones, or even update them later after further iteration. This flexible approach ensures that your research remains current and relevant to the scientific community. Method Articles do more than validate your work – they create valuable resources that help advance the entire field through documented, tested innovation that others can build on.
Why should I publish a Method Article?
Publishing your Method Articles with Open Research Europe ensures that you receive proper credit for your work, while supporting reproducible research and training. The Platform uses a careful peer review process that looks deeply at your methods, not just the surface details. This thorough review builds trust in your research and gives other researchers confidence to cite and use your methods in their own studies.
Open Research Europe’s approach to Method Articles also makes your research much more visible to the academic community. The Platform uses an open access model, which means more people can read your work than with traditional subscription journals. Articles that pass peer review are indexed on Scopus and PubMed, further increasing the discoverability of your research. This wider reach helps establish you as a leader in your field while ensuring your methods get the recognition they deserve. The mix of careful peer review and broad access creates highly visible Method Articles that advance scientific knowledge and build your reputation. This visibility can lead to new partnerships and opportunities as researchers can find and use your published methods in their own work.
Additionally, the peer review process for Method Articles checks if your work has academic value and gives enough detail for others to use successfully. This focus offers distinct advantages over traditional research papers.
Method Articles on Open Research Europe
Children and young people as research collaborators in a large-scale migration research project
IMMERSE, Integration Mapping of Refugee and Migrant Children in Educational and Other Experiential Environments in Europe, is a multi-partner research study funded under the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. The project’s consortium featured 11 partners in six countries: Belgium, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, and Spain. The five-year research project concluded in November 2023 and examined the socio-educational integration of refugee and migrant children in schools and other educational environments across the partner countries.
The following Method Article, published as part of the Horizon 2020 Gateway, discusses the collaborative participatory research process of the IMMERSE project, which focuses on mapping the integration of migrant children in education across Europe. It highlights the involvement of over 24,000 children and young people as research collaborators, emphasizing the importance of establishing a Children and Young People’s Advisory Group to ensure their voices were integral to the research process.
Read the full Method Article here.
Application of a practical methodology for the selection of suitable value chains to produce circular fertilizers from secondary raw materials
The increasing demand for food products, driven by a growing world population, has heightened Europe’s reliance on conventional fertilizers, which significantly impacts the environment. Over the past decade, new circular fertilizer value chains have emerged as promising alternatives to conventional fertilizers, which are produced through synthetic and manufacturing processes from raw materials such as air, natural gas, and mined ores, while circular fertilizers typically use secondary raw materials like wastewater and biowaste.
The following Method Article describes a practical approach to identifying and selecting promising circular fertilizer value chains from secondary raw materials, addressing Europe’s dependence on conventional fertilizers. Tested across 48 value chains, this method selected seven promising options for agricultural use, including struvite from urban and industrial wastewater and composted biowaste.
Read the full Method Article here.
Method Articles offer you the opportunity to gain recognition for technical advances while supporting reproducible science. Through rigorous peer review and open access publication, your methodological contributions become valuable resources that establish you as a thought leader and create new opportunities for collaboration.
Ready to publish your Method Article? Submit to Open Research Europe today.
