As Biomedical journals continue to be the single most important conduit for disseminating biomedical knowledge, they need to operate with sufficient evidence to drive their practice, similar to clinical medicine where evidence is key.
The poor quality of reporting of peer reviewed and editor approved clinical and preclinical research significantly reduces the confidence researchers and clinicians have in using best evidence to inform best practice.
The development of an international “best practice journal research network” will promote evidence-based practice and address the need to increase the amount and quality of research by journals.
The primary remit of the journal research network is to substantially increase the amount of research conducted by journals in journalology and address relevant questions in publication science.
Journals’ participation is fundamental as research conducted across multiple journals can provide more generalizable answers to some of the research questions that remain unanswered.
The journal research network aims at enhancing publication science and meta-research, providing answers to a range of journalology topics, including peer review, and promoting an evidence-based approach to running journals.
The role of publishers, journals and their scientific editors is central, which is why several journals (Annals of Internal Medicine, BMC Medicine, BMJ, BMJ Open, The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, JAMA, The Lancet, and PLoS Medicine) have welcomed this project and are helping with its development.
This website and the article Increasing the evidence base in journalology: creating an international best practice journal research network, by David Moher and Philippe Ravaud are the starting points of the research network. We encourage journals to join in for a better quality of journals.