Research Roadmap

Once the results of the analysis are ready, there is the possibility of publishing these results in various ways. Also. Amsterdam UMC facilitates and stimulates interaction between academic researchers and external stakeholders to drive the transition of scientific discoveries into innovations and insights that benefit society in various ways, a process called valorization.

Protect your research

Although it is probably not the first thing on a researcher’s mind, there are several reasons why it may be necessary to protect your idea, knowledge or findings – before bringing them into the public domain. Most importantly, you don’t want others to commercially exploit your idea without authorisation. And in the case of existing or potential future third-party collaborations, you may need to file a patent in order to protect your knowledge. For more information see the website of IXA.

Valorization & Patenting

Be aware that in case you want to commercialise or patent your research results, publishing too early could harm your chances of successfully doing so. If the research results could possibly lead to a product of interest to society (patients/research), please contact (your own business developer at) IXA before publishing.

IXA offers support throughout the entire valorization process and can identify the best valorization strategy for your innovation or technology.

IXA’s services cover activities ranging from the patenting of inventions and negotiating research and licensing contracts with industry, to creating start-up companies based on UMC technologies and negotiating research collaborations with industry.

Reporting guidelines

Journals require clear and thorough reporting of the research, so that researchers and readers can obtain an accurate picture of the design and implementation of the research and the research results that are presented. It is advisable to follow the guidelines developed by experts (e.g. epidemiologists, methodologists, statisticians) for a wide range of research design types in order to report the study adequately. These guidelines are available on the website of the EQUATOR network. EQUATOR has also developed a practical tool that can be helpful in selecting the proper guidelines.

Presenting your results

It is important to present your results in a clear and well-organized way in tables and graphs, since this will make a significant contribution to the understandability and visualization of your manuscript, poster or PowerPoint presentation. The choice of presenting results in a table or graph depends on the aim, number of variables, analysis methods and personal preferences. For an overview of presenting data in tables and figures, please refer to http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/heartjnl-2017-311581 and  http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/annrheumdis-2018-213396.

Affiliation of your paper

If you submit your article, it is very important to add the correct and complete affiliation More info at Medical Library.

Review process

Once an article has been submitted, it will be evaluated by the editor and a peer reviewer. Peer review means that a colleague assesses the article for readability, originality, writing style and content.

It is customary to send the article to be published to only one publisher at a time. The process of review by an editor and a peer reviewer is time-consuming and, for this reason, publishers want to be sure that they actually have exclusive information.

After a review, the article will be returned to the author. The feedback will include an assessment of the article:

• Directly rejected
• Must be revised according to the comments emerging from the review
• Can be accepted, provided that a few minor adjustments are made
• Directly accepted without changes (this hardly ever occurs)

It is therefore important to bear in mind that publishing an article is a lengthy process. The exact duration depends on the discipline and the journal.

Authorship

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends that authors should meet the following four criteria:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated or resolved.

Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone are not enough to justify authorship. All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed. Leaving out someone who does qualify as an author or not giving such a person the opportunity to qualify (e.g. by not asking for input on drafts of the article) is a breach of research integrity.

The Amsterdam UMC Research Code (Section 6) addresses the importance of arranging authorship/co-authorship and the intended sequence of authors for a publication as early as possible, and preferably before the actual writing of the article has started.

The Research Code is available here.

PURE

Pure is the Current Research Information System (CRIS) of Amsterdam UMC for research management and reporting needs.
Researchers of Amsterdam UMC can register their research output and showcase in Pure AMC or Pure VUmc and show it on public Portals and websites. Administrators can use the data from Pure AMC and Pure VUmc for e.g. annual reports.