Connecting Science

The Journal of Health and Social Care Improvement editorial team welcomes the opportunity to support Open Science and Access movement. The online e-Journal has been a resource for novice and more experienced writers since 2008. Its free accessibility, contributor-friendly processes and transparent publishing practices are only the first steps in our commitment to foster a culture of contemporary open science and research. Hence, the e-Journal does not restrict its contributors to submitting set formats or voices. In fact, we are very proud of one of our issues that have promoted creativity in science and knowledge generation. The e-Journal supports ideas that Health and Social Care cannot advance any longer by a few experts but collaboratively. The Journal of Health and Social Care Improvement has already implemented many open science initiatives to stimulate such collaboration. First, accessibility for all involved as both publishing and reading are freely available. Second, pragmatics by not claiming more than what we do, allowing the communities to decide what they find beneficial or valuable. Real-life research and science done by humans are likely to be messy and imperfect. Third, transparency by not scrutinising narrowly what is shared or how. Our quality check is more and more about meeting open science standards than any other outmoded metrics. And fourth, openness, as we believe, the editorial team’s role is to facilitate and provide a forum to discuss, debate and negotiate. Our peer-review process is open between writers and reviewers.

Building Communities

Our motto, ‘The Journal of Opportunity’, expresses the ambition of encouraging students, professionals, early career and established researchers to publish material that fosters communities of knowledge and practice. We believe that anyone involved in the provision of health and social care should share, connect and produce science together. And that such endeavour should be communicated in various ways. The Journal of Health and Social Care Improvement has been probing the benefits of open access and research for a while. The feedback has been both reassuring and promising. We believe that the public, fellow students, professionals and researchers are the best to evaluate each other works and even correct spelling mistakes if it is pertinent to creating scientific knowledge. But our ambition for the future of the journal and open science does not end here. We continue to evolve the e-journal into an even more vibrant, active and animated community of knowledge and practice. We aim to publish even more diverse, creative and informative pieces, including preprints, readers’ and partners’ responses and peer review comments. We invite all to create science and not only witness our future health and social care. We finish with the sentiment: we hope to see you soon on one of the pages of the Journal of Health and Social Care Improvement.