As we approach the end of 2022 and a new year, we’re reflecting on the last 12 months of Open Research Europe.
With articles published across the breadth of Natural Sciences, Engineering and Technology, Medical Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities, and Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences, the Platform continues to go from strength to strength in supporting Horizon, Euratom, and other co-funded researchers.
We’re also exploring the five most-read articles of the year, and some of the key research themes of 2022 on Open Research Europe.
Read on to find out more.
2022 in numbers
Following the launch of Open Research Europe in 2021, the Platform has consistently grown in visibility and influence, which is reflected in the success of 2022.
At the time of writing, 132 articles had been published on the Platform this year, sharing insights into everything from renewable energy to Ancient Greek tragedy, with 88 of these passing peer review from 264 peer review reports.
Articles published in 2022 have accrued almost 7,000 views and over 1,400 downloads over the year, as well as 266 citations – highlighting the visibility and impact of these articles when published open access and rapidly before peer review, ensuring cutting-edge findings can be shared immediately.
Some of the key research themes on Open Research Europe in 2022 focused on Analytical Techniques, Safeguarding Europe’s Cultural Heritage, and research resulting from the 2022 Sustainable Places conference, with a dedicated Collection in place for each of these – providing a central place to collate and curate the latest thematic research from across the EU research community.
The importance of a variety of article types
One key benefit of Open Research Europe for researchers is the ability to publish a range of article types, from traditional Research Articles to Data Notes and Software Tool Articles.
This ensures that all research outputs can be published at different stages throughout the research journey, thus reducing research waste, while also enabling greater reproducibility and trust in the findings.
This was strongly reflected in the data for 2022, with 11 different article types published this year, including 40 Method Articles, 18 Essays, 16 Software Tool Articles, and nine Study Protocols.
Celebrating the launch of our Community Gateways
This year we’ve launched 33 Community Gateways led by 37 Advisors – all active researchers producing high-quality work within their respective fields.
These Community Gateways provide dedicated spaces within Open Research Europe for research in a particular broad discipline, with topics varying from Animal and Dairy Science to Nanotechnology.
In particular, two Community Gateways have been key themes in 2022:
- The Research on Research Community Gateway, which is dedicated to the study of research itself and making the culture of research more efficient, fairer, more inclusive, and more impactful.
- The Clinical Medicine Community Gateway, which focuses on a variety of clinical medicine research themes, including cardiology, oncology, clinical trials, and infectious diseases.
Have we launched one for your research discipline yet? If you’d like to suggest other Community Gateway themes, leave us a comment at the end of the blog!
This year’s five most-read articles
Articles published on Open Research Europe this year covered a whole range of research topics and themes from across the science, technology, engineering, and humanities fields, and we’ve identified the most-read articles of 2022.
Our most-read article comes from the Horizon 2020-funded research project ModernShip, which seeks to deepen our understanding of Mediterranean shipbuilding during the Renaissance, which is still a little-known field today.
The project’s focus has been a programme of archaeological excavations and historical research on Mortella III, a Genoese merchant ship sunk in the Bay of Saint-Florent in 1527 during the Seventh Italian War, and this Research Article presents the conclusions of the research programme.
The second article on the most-read list is an Open Letter addressing the spread of trypanosomosis (otherwise known as sleeping sickness) in livestock, which has significant implications for livestock keepers and food production and can cause a human form of the disease.
The Open Letter introduces the “Controlling and progressively Minimizing the Burden of Animal Trypanosomosis” project, otherwise known as the COMBAT project, which seeks to reduce the burden of animal trypanosomosis (AT) in Africa by strengthening AT control and prevention.
Innovative forest products in the circular bioeconomy
Our third most-read article explores some of the innovative wood-based technologies in place in forest-based industry to reduce the environmental footprint of products and processes, and the opportunities and challenges for market uptake more widely.
The Research Article finds that many innovative products are already being produced at industrial scale, such as cross-laminated timber, wood-based composites, and lyocell, but can still increase their market share in the coming years. It also details future high potential products, including wood foam, bioplastics, and textile fibres, but notes that ease of market introduction relies heavily on the ability to take advantage of existing value chains.
Local brain-state dependency of effective connectivity: a pilot TMS–EEG study
A Brief Report exploring how magnetic stimulation can affect brain activity is our fourth most-read article of the year, and was also featured in our latest research spotlight.
Neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s disease are a result of brain-wide network failure, due to signal transmissions from one area of the brain to the other being impacted by brain rhythms, and this study investigates the mechanisms that underpin these miscommunications to help improve brain treatments for psychiatric and neurological conditions.
The final article on our most-read list explores the effect of digital disinformation on security and assesses the success of counter-responses, such as fact-checkers and institutional strategic communicators.
Overall findings suggest that the effects of disinformation depends on several factors, and pre-existing attitudes and beliefs play a very important role in the acceptance of disinformation content. It also found that correcting disinformation through fact-checking is not necessarily effective for all subjects, and that corrections from friends and those with a mutual relationship tend to be more effective.
Looking to the future
“This year proved to be another great success for Open Research Europe.
Not only have we seen fantastic research published across the disciplines and the launch of our new Community Gateways, but we’ve achieved a number of milestones for the Platform, including acceptance for indexing into Scopus, Inspec, and ERIH Plus (with more to come in 2023), and outreach within our research community through successful webinars and institutional visits.
I look forward to seeing what 2023 brings for Open Research Europe and its continued adoption by researchers.”
Kelly Woods, F1000 Senior Associate Publisher
We want to take this opportunity to thank all the authors and peer reviewers who have published and reviewed with Open Research Europe this year. We look forward to seeing more cutting-edge research published in 2023, and to welcoming more authors to the Platform.
We’d also like to give a big thanks to our Gateway and Collection Advisors, who provide vital input and strategic direction to the research themes highlighted on Open Research Europe.
If you’re new to Open Research Europe and would like to learn more, or are just looking for more information on the Platform and how it works, visit the website for more information and what you can expect when submitting your research.
