Article type spotlight: Method Articles
| 13 January, 2026 | Jack Nash |
Have you developed a new or improved research method that could change how studies are conducted in your field? In today’s fast-moving scientific world, sharing methodological innovations is just as important as publishing research findings. Method Articles offer researchers a dedicated way to document and share their technical advances, ensuring that these valuable contributions don’t get lost in traditional research papers, which are more focused on results rather than the process.
In the following blog post, we outline what Method Articles are, why publishing your work as a Method Article can be beneficial to your research journey, and highlight some Method Articles published on Wellcome Open Research.
What are Method Articles?
Method Articles provide researchers with a straightforward way to share new experimental, observational, or computational methods. These publications require detailed documentation of how you developed your method, why you created it, and its effectiveness. This helps other researchers understand and use your work. Whether you’ve built new data collection techniques, improved existing procedures, or found fresh ways to apply established methods, Method Articles focus on the method itself rather than research results. They welcome technical innovations like experimental tools, data analysis software, and medical devices such as drug delivery systems.
You can publish method articles for completely new methods, significant improvements to existing ones, or even update them later after further iteration. This flexible approach ensures that your research remains current and relevant to the scientific community. Method Articles do more than validate your work – they create valuable resources that help advance the entire field through documented, tested innovation that others can build on.
Additionally, the peer review process for method articles checks if your work has academic value and gives enough detail for others to use successfully. This focus offers distinct advantages over traditional research papers.
Why should I publish a Method Article?
Publishing your Method Article with Wellcome Open Research ensures that you receive proper credit for your work, while supporting reproducible research and training. The Platform uses a careful peer review process that looks deeply at your methods, not just the surface details. This thorough review builds trust in your research and gives other researchers confidence to use your methods. When reviewers examine every aspect of your methodology, it demonstrates that your work is of high quality and reliable. This makes other researchers more likely to cite and use your innovations in their own studies.
Wellcome Open Research’s approach to Method Articles also makes your research much more visible to the academic community. The Platform uses an open access model, which means more people can read your work than with traditional subscription journals. This wider reach helps establish you as a leader in your field while ensuring your methods get the recognition they deserve. The mix of careful peer review and broad access creates highly visible Method Articles that advance scientific knowledge and build your reputation. This visibility can lead to new partnerships and opportunities as researchers can find and use your published methods in their own work.
Method Articles on Wellcome Open Research
Efficient Ribosomal RNA Depletion From Drosophila Total RNA For Next-Generation Sequencing Applications
Drosophila melanogaster has emerged as a key model organism due to rapid generation time, easy maintenance, a well-characterised genome and low experimental cost. With a genome that shares ~60% homology with humans, Drosophila plays a critical role in studying numerous conditions, including neurodegeneration, cardiac diseases, metabolic disorders, and even rare human diseases. Drosophila is also essential for exploring normal physiology and gene regulation, enabling researchers to further investigate gene regulation under a range of conditions, advancing our understanding of both healthy and pathological states.
RNA expression plays a crucial role in maintenance of physiological balance. High-throughput RNA sequencing has transformed transcriptomic research, allowing for the comprehensive profiling of gene expression. However, RNA belonging to the cell’s internal ribosomes (ribosomal RNA / rRNA) can pose a significant challenge for transcriptomic studies, as it must be removed from the total RNA before sequencing. Current methods for processing rRNA are not suitable for low-quality RNA, or damage RNA samples in the process. Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Mandi have proposed a new cost-effective enzyme-based method for ribosomal RNA (rRNA) depletion in Drosophila melanogaster. This approach utilises single-stranded DNA probes to form hybrids with rRNA, which are then degraded.
Read the full Method Article here.
Releasing synthetic data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC): Guidelines and applied examples
The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) is a prospective birth cohort. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the study has collected over thirty years of data on approximately 15,000 mothers, their partners, and their offspring, resulting in over 100,000 phenotype variables to date. Maintaining data security and participant anonymity and confidentiality are key principles for the study, meaning that data access is restricted to bona fide researchers who must apply to use data, which is then shared on a project-by-project basis. Despite these legitimate reasons for restricting data access, this does run counter to emerging best scientific practices encouraging making data openly available to facilitate transparent and reproducible research.
The following Method Article, published as part of the ALSPAC Gateway, discusses methods for generating and sharing synthesised datasets from the ALSPAC to balance data security with the need for open access in research. It highlights the use of the ‘synthpop’ package in R for creating these datasets, which maintain the original data’s variable distributions while ensuring participant anonymity. Additionally, the paper provides guidelines for researchers and demonstrates the educational value of these synthesised datasets in teaching longitudinal modelling methods.
Read the full Method Article here.
Method Articles offer you the opportunity to gain recognition for technical advances while supporting reproducible science. Through rigorous peer review and open access publication, your methodological contributions become valuable resources that establish you as a thought leader and create new opportunities for collaboration.
Ready to publish your Method Article? Submit to Wellcome Open Research today, at no cost to you as a Wellcome-funded author.