PRO-MaP

PRO-MaP – Promoting Reusable and Open Methods and Protocols

Objectives

PRO-MaP began with a workshop hosted by the Joint Research Centre (the European Commission’s Science and Knowledge Service) in June of 2022. PRO-MaP was established to identify actions that different stakeholders within the life sciences research ecosystem could take to address the problems mentioned above.

Results

PRO-MaP recommends actions that four stakeholder groups, namely researchers, research institutions and departments, publishers and editors, and funders, can take to improve reporting of detailed methods and reusable step-by-step protocols in life sciences publications. 

The draft recommendations were shared as a preprint in June 2023. Input from stakeholders was used to improve the recommendations.

The final recommendations were published as a Science for Policy report of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), containing recommendations for each stakeholder group. 

The recommendations for editors and publishers were briefly highlighted in a Scholarly Kitchen guest blog post by PRO-MaP co-author Marcel LaFlamme.

Upcoming Activities

We encourage researchers, and leadership and administrative staff in research institutions and departments, to work collaboratively to begin implementing the PRO-MaP recommendations. Individuals, research groups and organizations can start with one or two items that would be easy to implement, while exploring opportunities to implement more challenging items over time. Researchers and research institutions and departments can also encourage funders and publishers and editors to implement the recommendations, as transformative change will require collaborative action across all stakeholder groups. The PRO-MaP authors welcome contributions and collaborations with stakeholders working to implement these recommendations.

PRO-MaP Members