A new living evidence resource for mental health research
| 24 April, 2023 | admin |
Wellcome Open Research is delighted to collaborate with the Global Alliance for Living Evidence on aNxiety, depresSion, and pSychosis (GALENOS) project to provide a new living evidence resource hub for global mental health research.
Read more about the GALENOS project, its partnership with Wellcome Open Research, and the value of living evidence in research in our blog below.
An introduction to living evidence in research and Living Systematic Reviews
Living evidence, which typically takes the form of a Living Systematic Review (LSR), is vital in rapidly evolving scientific fields and seeks to overcome the challenges in traditional systematic reviews.
Systematic reviews are a valuable research format that summarise and analyse all available evidence related to a particular research question or niche within a field and provide key resources for researchers looking to understand the current state of play in that area.
However, traditional systematic reviews can rapidly become outdated, presenting a static snapshot of evidence at the time the review was conducted, which is only amplified by the long lead times in traditional publishing and peer review models before the review is finally published.
“This is a unique opportunity for evidence synthesis in mental health to not only foster research but also to produce better outcomes for all patients. We are starting an exciting journey to understand the mechanisms behind what works and what doesn’t work about pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments, diagnosis and prognostic tools in depression, anxiety and psychosis.”
Professor Andrea Cipriani, GALENOS project lead
This is a major challenge in fields where new scientific literature is being published every day, resulting in a substantial amount of new evidence being omitted from each systematic review.
As a result, a group led by Julian Elliot (who is part of the GALENOS leadership team) proposed a new concept to address this issue and to help bridge the evidence gap in these rapidly evolving fields, with Living Systematic Reviews defined as:
“a systematic review that is continually updated, incorporating new evidence as it becomes available”.
Transforming the future of mental health research
Mental health is one such rapidly evolving field, with new research published every day, all over the world. It presents a huge challenge to researchers, funders, and other stakeholders in mental health science to keep track of the latest literature and findings and use them in a meaningful way.
To help overcome this challenge, the GALENOS project, funded by the Wellcome Trust, has been established to create a continuously updated, comprehensive, and trustworthy catalogue of the best scientific literature in anxiety, depression, and psychosis research, using an easy-to-navigate online resource.
The three-year project was formally launched on 8 March 2023 and comprises an international collaboration led by Professor Andrea Cipriani from Oxford University, with the objective to produce 24 LSRs over the next three years.
“Publishing these living systematic reviews on Wellcome Open Research not only ensures they can benefit from the in-built versioning system that will allow them to be truly living articles, but also to be reported openly and transparently.
Through the transparent reporting of the methods, data, and peer review of articles, readers – whether academics, clinicians or those with lived experience – will be able to trust and scrutinise the evidence that GALENOS produces.”
James Barker, Associate Publisher, F1000
Partnering with Wellcome Open Research
To support the publication of the project’s LSRs and to further increase the discoverability of the research, GALENOS has partnered with Wellcome Open Research to provide a rapid, fully transparent, open access publishing venue.
All LSRs, as well as related publications from the project, will be published in a dedicated Gateway on Wellcome Open Research, which benefits from the platform’s innovative publishing model:
- Rapid publication of articles pre-peer review to reduce the lengthy delays found in traditional publishing models
- Robust open peer review following publication, with peer review reports, names, and affiliations all published alongside LSRs to increase learning, collaboration, and transparency
- No author-facing fees for publication, with APCs covered by the Wellcome Trust to reduce barriers to publication
- Full open access to all published articles
We look forward to seeing the project evolve and to supporting its goal of transforming the future of mental health research.
Find out more about the GALENOS project and learn more about the Wellcome Open Research publishing model.