Unique Journal of Research on Research committed to experimentation and evidence-informed practice
New open access journal aims to serve and consolidate the research-on-research community
The Research-on-Research Association (RORATION) and Taylor & Francis have announced the launch of the Journal of Research on Research (J·ROR), an open-access, community-owned home for research on how research is funded, organized, conducted, communicated, and evaluated. Both a platform for scholarly work and a site of active engagement with the challenges and opportunities facing the research community, J·ROR aims to support evidence-informed change of research systems, partners, and practices.
Publishing and conducting research on research
J·ROR will occupy a unique dual role: as a journal that both publishes and conducts research on research. Taylor & Francis will share in this endeavor, providing access to data regarding publishing processes across its portfolio. Through hosting in-journal experiments on innovations in areas such as peer review, editorial workflows and other publishing processes, the editorial team will generate evidence to inform not only J·ROR ‘s own practices but also contribute to advancing standards across scholarly communication.
“We believe that a field committed to producing robust evidence for the enhancement of research practices and culture must also be willing to apply that evidence to its own operations,” explain the editors in an inaugural editorial. “Accordingly, J·ROR is committed to integrating emerging insights into its editorial practices as they become available.”
Transparent peer review
J·ROR‘s peer review system aims to function as a dialogue between authors, editors, and reviewers, providing formative feedback to strengthen contributions before publication. This will be supported through a transparent peer review approach, publishing review reports alongside articles (open reports) and offering reviewers the option to sign their reviews.
From launch, J·ROR is partnering with the publish-review-curate platform MetaROR to consider works reviewed via their platform for publication.
Uniting a disparate field
J·ROR provides a central location for all research that identifies as ‘research on research.’ The journal embraces all ways of doing, knowing and understanding how research is practiced, produced, evaluated, and governed.
“Our primary motivation for this journal was the desire to serve our scattered field and our community,” said the editors. “In its current disparate state, our multidisciplinary field risks contributing to recreating its own research waste, which many in the field feel we should be working to reduce.”
Community ownership
J·ROR is published by Taylor & Francis but owned by the research-on-research community through RORATION, an independent scholarly society set up to oversee the journal’s development. This will ensure J·ROR’s evolution is shaped by that community and its values, whoever that community becomes.
Gemma Derrick, Editor-in-Chief of J·ROR and Professor (Research Policy & Culture) at The University of Bristol, said: “The Journal of Research on Research represents a shared achievement, shaped by years of mutual learning between our editors, RORATION, Taylor & Francis, and a global community committed to improving how research is conducted, evaluated, and supported. We look forward to continuing these discussions as the journal develops.”
Amanda Ward, Senior Vice President of Journals Publishing at Taylor & Francis, said: “It has been wonderful for Taylor & Francis to collaborate with a group of editors with such a clear and ambitious vision for their new journal. We’re excited to partner with this community-led initiative and look forward to seeing evidence produced by J·ROR experimentation helping to inform how other Taylor & Francis journals develop.”
J·ROR is now open for submissions across all areas of research on research. The journal particularly welcomes contributions that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries and advance understanding, either empirically or conceptually, of how research systems function and how they can be improved.