Research data publishing made easy: introducing the co-submission process

Killing two birds with one stone when it comes to data and methods requirements

In recent years, governments and funding bodies have become more explicit in their research data sharing requirements. The Office of Science and Technology Policy opens in new tab/window, National Institute of Health and cOAlition S/Plan S advocate for the storage of research data in open and publicly available repositories. Additionally, more and more organizations promote and support FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reproducible) opens in new tab/window sharing principles of research data and methods. These are laudable aims, but for you as author, it means another hurdle to jump through on the journey to publication.

In 2024, Elsevier welcomed close to four million unique submissions and the large majority of these were produced using research data. Through Data in Brief opens in new tab/window, authors can publish a peer reviewed data article describing their research data. When publishing in Data in Brief, authors are mandated to deposit their dataset in a freely accessible data repository, aiming to further increase research reproducibility, replicability, and open science, saving both research funds and time.

In 2025 we’re planning to further streamline the publication of research data by extending the co-submission workflow opens in new tab/window. This workflow allows authors to simultaneously submit their full-length research article and their related Data in Brief article in one go. To make this process even easier, we’ve also developed a re-submission robot, which will identify the co-submission and subsequently re-submit this on the author’s behalf to the Data in Brief Editorial Manager site for editorial handling and potential peer review. In case both the full-length research article and the co-submission article are accepted, they will be linked reciprocally on ScienceDirect .

Please find an example below of a Data in Brief co-submission opens in new tab/window linked on ScienceDirect to the full-length research article published in Science of The Total Environment opens in new tab/window:

With every regular manuscript submission taking approximately 30 minutes, combining two submissions into one process will save significant author time & effort. Thirty minutes might not sound like a lot, but overall, this new workflow means a potential time saving of 1.6M researcher hours (182.5 years!) per year. And with the continued pressure to publish and increasing time constraints associated with everyday life (let alone the life of a researcher...), offering a two-in-one submission workflow might just be what you have been waiting for!

Next to research data, the sharing of research methods and protocols also helps to further advance the reproducibility of research and open science. To that end, the co-submission process will enable submissions to MethodsX opens in new tab/window in addition to Data in Brief. MethodsX publishes methods and protocol articles where authors can describe in detail the methodology or protocol used in their related full-length research article. Authors can select either Data in Brief or MethodsX when uploading their files to initiate the co-submission process. To find out more about how to submit your co-submission, please watch this short video opens in new tab/window.

Our ambition is, and assuming there will be significant uptake, to enable authors to benefit from the co-submission workflow for every one of our journals by the second half of 2025. What’s more, we’re also in discussion with our society partners, several of whom have expressed their interest to have their journals participate in the initiative as well. Please check the guide for authors of the journal to which you are submitting to check if the co-submission workflow is live.

At Elsevier, we are passionate about serving community needs when it comes to the “FAIR” sharing of research data, methods and protocols, all of which facilitates the further advancement of open science. By offering authors this easy “two-in-one” submission process, saving your time, and enabling an additional citable publication, the co-submission workflow is here to stay, and we encourage you to participate and benefit yourself!