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When is a grant proposal or protocol eligible for the 50% discount on the APF?

Editorial Director
Updated

JMIR Research Protocols offers a 50% discount ($950 instead of $1900) on proposals and protocols if they are grant funded and have undergone prior peer-review. Provision of these peer review reports allow for an expedited editorial decision based on the already provided and validated grant funding agency peer-review reports.

Eligibility of Peer Review Reports for JMIR Research Protocols

To qualify, all of the following conditions below must be fulfilled, without exception:

As proof of previous peer-review, authors must at the time of submission upload the original peer-review reports from the granting agency (and ideally also authors' responses).

  • These reports/letters should be uploaded as Multimedia Appendix, and should ideally be published (refer to them in the paper as "Multimedia Appendix 1" etc.)
  • Our policy is to publish the existing peer-review reports unless we receive a written notice from the funder that - even with the grant recipients consent - the peer-review reports can not be published for confidentiality or other reasons.
  • We rarely also make exceptions if authors do not wish to have the peer-review reports published; however, you need to furnish us with an acceptable reason for this and the report should be nonetheless uploaded to our system for the discount to apply.
  • Note: Even if peer-review reports are not published, they are required to be kept in the manuscript management system as a record of the manuscript's editorial history. 
  • The original peer-review reports can be in any language (if you have a translation in English, please supply it as a "Multimedia Appendix 2").
  • The peer-review reports should contain an actual narrative and/or quantitative critique of the proposal, or at the very least a summary of committee/reviewer discussions.
  • The peer-review reports should be provided in an original letter-headed document from the funding institution, or in some similar formal format. A screenshot of an email or a simple text MS Word document would not be sufficient.
  • As "Section" in step 1 of the submission process you must select a section with the word "funded" in it.

Important: JMIR Research Protocols manuscripts that are eligible for this discount are not eligible for any further discounts. APF support applications for further discounts will not be approved, in accordance with JMIR Publications APF Support Policy.

Not Eligible for the 50% APF discount:

  • Proposals that are not grant-funded are not eligible for the discount.
  • An ethics approval is not sufficient, you must include the actual peer-review reports from the funding/granting agency.
  • Alone, documents from the grant agency that do not meet peer-review report criteria above and only state that the grant was awarded, or terms of the grant (e.g., the grant contract) are not sufficient
  • A screenshot of an email or a simple text MS Word document containing peer review comments is not sufficient.
  • Broad funding support of a center/institute/organization/agency to do a broad array of academic activities that may include multiple research programs/lines/initiatives may not be eligible, especially when used to support a manuscript on one single line/project within the larger roadmap of center/institute funding. Peer review comments from the funder should specifically include comments for the protocol manuscript submitted. Such submissions will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
  • We reserve the right to reverse the 50% APF discount and request authors to pay the full APF with no discount, if authors request removal of external peer review reports from the manuscript management system at any stage of peer review or production --  even after the authors pay the discounted APF. Peer-review reports are required to be kept in the manuscript management system as a record of the manuscript's editorial history. 
  • We reserve the right to apply the full Article Processing Fee, if the uploaded peer-review reports do not meet the requirements outlines above.

If in doubt, please contact us with you specific question about above eligibility criteria by emailing support@jmir.org prior to submission or as early as possible during the submission process.

 

Note: Due to an agreement with the University of California (APF Support for Corresponding Authors from the University of California), protocols from a UC corresponding author that meet the eligibility criteria above can be published free of charge from the author-perspective (costs are fully covered by the California libraries and centrally billed)!

 

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