JMIR Research Protocols

Protocols, grant proposals, registered reports (RR1)

Editor-in-Chief:

Amy Schwartz, MSc, Ph.D., Scientific Editor at JMIR Publications, Ontario, Canada


Impact Factor 1.4 CiteScore 2.4

JMIR Research Protocols  (JRP, ISSN 1929-0748) is a unique journal indexed in PubMed, PubMed Central (PMC), MEDLINE, Sherpa Romeo, DOAJ, Scopus, Web of Science(WoS)/ESCI/SCIE, and EBSCO, publishing peer-reviewed, openly accessible research ideas and grant proposals, and study and trial protocols (also referred to as Registered Report Stage 1 papers). 

In 2024, JMIR Research Protocols received a Journal Impact Factor™ of 1.4 (5-Year Journal Impact Factor™: 1.5) according to the latest release of the Journal Citation Reports™ from Clarivate, 2024. 

With a CiteScore of 2.4, JMIR Research Protocols ranks in the 66th percentile (#211 of 636) as a Q2 journal in the field of General Medicine.

It should be stressed however that most authors do not publish their protocols for "impact" or citations, rather to document their ideas to how to design experiments, to document their successful grant proposals, or to publish (and maybe brag a little about) their already funded protocols (which do not require additional peer-review). We offer this platform for scientists to publish peer-reviewed protocols for a very low APF, and unfunded protocols for a reasonable fee that includes peer-review. 

While the original focus was on eHealth studies, JRP now publishes protocols and grant proposals in all areas of medicine, and their peer-review reports, if available (preliminary results from pilot studies, early results, and formative research should now be published in JMIR Formative Research).

JRP is fully open access, with full-text articles deposited in PubMed Central.

Why should I publish my protocol? 

  • JRP publishes research protocols, grant proposals, pilot/feasibility studies and early reports of ongoing and planned work that encourages collaboration and early feedback, and reduces duplication of effort.
  • JRP will be a valuable educational resource for researchers who want to learn about current research methodologies and how to write a winning grant proposal.
  • JRP creates an early scientific record for researchers who have developed novel methodologies, software, innovations or elaborate protocols.
  • JRP provides a "dry-run" for peer-review of the final results paper, and allows feedback/critique of the methods, often while they still can be fixed.
  • JRP enhances rigor and demonstrates to reviewers of subsequent results papers that authors followed and adhered to carefully developed and described a-priori methods, rather than fishing for P-values (HARKing).
  • JRP facilitates and guarantees subsequent publication of results demonstrating that the methodology has already been reviewed, and reduces the effort of writing up the results, as the protocol can be easily referenced.
  • JRP is compatible with the concept of "Registered Reports" and since May 2018, published protocols receive an International Registered Report Identifier (What is a Registered Report Identifier?) and acceptance of the subsequent results paper is "in principle" guaranteed in any JMIR journal and partner journals - see What is a Registered Report?. We assign an IRRID (International Registered Report Identifier) to each published protocol, faciliating the linking between protocol and final study, and also indicating that results papers of studies are also "in principle accepted" for subsequent publication in other JMIR journals (or other members of the IRRID Registry Network) as long as authors adhere to their original protocol - regardless of study results (even if they are negative), reducing publication bias in medicine.
  • Authors publishing their protocols in JRP will receive a 20% discount on the article processing fee if they publish their results in another journal of the JMIR journal family (for example, JMIR for e-health studies, i-JMR for others).

Need more reasons? Read the Knowledge Base article on "Why should I publish my protocol/grant proposal"!

 

Recent Articles

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Systematic Review Protocols

Injectable platelet-rich fibrin (i-PRF) has the capacity to release great amounts of several growth factors, as well as to stimulate increased fibroblast migration and the expression of collagen, transforming growth factor β, and platelet-derived growth factor. Consequently, i-PRF can be used as a bioactive agent to promote periodontal tissue regeneration.

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NIH mHealth - funded projects

Many transgender women with HIV achieve suboptimal advancement through the HIV Care Continuum, including poor HIV health care usage, retention in HIV medical care, and rates of viral suppression. These issues are exacerbated by comorbid conditions, such as substance use disorder, which is also associated with reduced quality of life, increased overdose deaths, usage of high-cost health care services, engagement in a street economy, and cycles of incarceration. Thus, it is critical that efforts to End the HIV Epidemic include effective interventions to link and retain transgender women in HIV care through full viral suppression.

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Non-Randomized Study Protocols and Methods (Non-eHealth)

The 2019 Canada’s Food Guide provides universal recommendations to individuals aged ≥2 years. However, the extent to which these recommendations are appropriate for older adults is unknown. Although ideal, conducting a large randomized controlled trial is unrealistic in the short term. An alternative is the target trial emulation framework for causal inference, a novel approach to improve the analysis of observational data.

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Methods and Feasibility Studies

Transitioning into the first year of clinical practice as a nurse or changing specialties in the nursing career presents a critical phase for novice nurses characterized by excitement, apprehension, and the phenomenon of “transition shock.” Within perioperative nursing, this transition phase takes on distinctive challenges. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence on transition programs and arrangements.

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Systematic Review Protocols

Individuals with hearing impairments may face hindrances in health care assistance, which may significantly impact the prognosis and the incidence of complications and iatrogenic events. Therefore, the development of automatic communication systems to assist the interaction between this population and health care workers is paramount.

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Non-randomized Protocols and Methods (ehealth)

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a leading cause of premature morbidity and mortality globally and affects more than 100 million people in the world’s most populous country, India. Nutrition is a critical and evidence-based component of effective blood glucose control and most dietary advice emphasizes carbohydrate and calorie reduction. Emerging global evidence demonstrates marked interindividual differences in postprandial glucose response (PPGR) although no such data exists in India and previous studies have primarily evaluated PPGR variation in individuals without diabetes.

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NIH mHealth - funded projects

Personalized approaches to behavior change to improve mental and physical health outcomes are needed. Reducing the intensity, duration, and frequency of stress responses is a mechanism for interventions to improve health behaviors. We developed an ambulatory, dynamic stress measurement approach that can identify personalized stress responses in the moments and contexts in which they occur; we propose that intervening in these stress responses as they arise (ie, just in time; JIT) will result in positive impacts on health behaviors.

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Non-Randomized Study Protocols and Methods (Non-eHealth)

In South Africa, there is no centralized HIV surveillance system where key populations (KPs) data, including gay men and other men who have sex with men, female sex workers, transgender persons, people who use drugs, and incarcerated persons, are stored in South Africa despite being on higher risk of HIV acquisition and transmission than the general population. Data on KPs are being collected on a smaller scale by numerous stakeholders and managed in silos. There exists an opportunity to harness a variety of data, such as empirical, contextual, observational, and programmatic data, for evaluating the potential impact of HIV responses among KPs in South Africa.

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Non-randomized Protocols and Methods (ehealth)

There are gaps in our understanding of the clinical characteristics and disease burden of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) among community-dwelling adults. This is in part due to a lack of routine testing at the point of care. More data would enhance our assessment of the need for an RSV vaccination program for adults in the United Kingdom.

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Non-Randomized Study Protocols and Methods (Non-eHealth)

An aging population in combination with more gentle and less stressful surgical procedures leads to an increased number of operations on older patients. This collectively raises novel challenges due to higher age heavily impacting treatment. A major problem, emerging in up to 50% of cases, is perioperative delirium. It is thus vital to understand whether and which existing geriatric assessments are capable of reliably identifying risk factors, how high the incidence of delirium is, and whether the resulting management of these risk factors might lead to a reduced incidence of delirium.

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Formative Studies and eHealth/mHealth Development

Among cardiovascular diseases, adult patients with congenital heart disease represent a population that has been continuously increasing, which is mainly due to improvement of the pathophysiological framing, including the development of surgical and reanimation techniques. However, approximately 20% of these patients will require surgery in adulthood and 40% of these cases will necessitate reintervention for residual defects or sequelae of childhood surgery. In this field, cardiac rehabilitation (CR) in the postsurgical phase has an important impact on the patient by improving psychophysical and clinical recovery in reducing fatigue and dyspnea to ultimately increase survival. In this context, compliance with the rehabilitation program is a key element for the therapeutic benefits of the program. The increase of mobile health care devices and software has greatly extended self-care capabilities across the spectrum of health care activities. Moreover, the possibility of telemonitoring the progress of this self-care provides elements of empowerment and awareness of one’s state of health. As a branch of telehealth, CR can be optimized and facilitated using remote telemedicine devices.

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Systematic Review Protocols

In recent years, the intersection of natural language processing (NLP) and public health has opened innovative pathways for investigating social determinants of health (SDOH) in textual datasets. Despite the promise of NLP in the SDOH domain, the literature is dispersed across various disciplines, and there is a need to consolidate existing knowledge, identify knowledge gaps in the literature, and inform future research directions in this emerging field.

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Preprints Open for Peer-Review

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