On the 28^th of February 2018 the Health Research Board (HRB), One of Ireland’s largest funding agencies took a large step forward for Open Science by launching an Open Research Publishing Platform.  HRB Open Research is an Open Access, Open Peer-review, Publishing Platform that accepts submissions from HRB funded researchers.

How it works

1. Open submission of an article, the editorial team does a basic check on each submission to ensure that all policies are adhered to.
2. The finalised manuscript, the article (with its associated source data) is then published within a week, enabling immediate viewing and citation.
3. Expert referees are selected and invited, and their reports and names are published alongside the article, together with the authors' responses and comments from registered users.
4. Based on the reviews authors publish revised versions of their article. All versions of the article are linked and independently citable.

 
The HRB’s open publishing platform joins two of the largest health-related funders in the world – Wellcome and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in providing Open Publishing platforms for their researchers. Publishing using the new platform is significantly quicker than publishing in traditional journals with the average time being 7 days from fist submission to publications. This is especially important in the area of health research where new discoveries can mean saving lives.

 
Post by Ashling Hayes