New thematic calls for science at Research and Practice in Thrombosis and Haemostasis.

Readers and authors may have noticed a new program at the Journal for publication of original articles in “thematic areas.” These articles are given waivers of their article publication charge (APC; i.e., open access publishing fee). The program evolved from our activities during the coronavirus disease‐19 (COVID‐19) pandemic. At the start of the pandemic, for several months, we waived the APC for articles dealing with COVID‐19.  This program was successful, and articles published can be found on our website in the COVID‐19 article collection. We are fortunate to have a budget provided by our publisher Wiley and the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis (ISTH) to support us waiving the APC for articles of our choosing. We use this primarily for invited review articles and our ISTH State‐of‐the Art series. The State‐of‐the‐Art series includes reviews by experts presenting in State‐of‐the‐Art sessions at the annual ISTH Congress and each article includes a “Congress Report” of interesting abstracts presented.

Building from the success of the COVID‐19 waiver program, the new program seeks submissions on research themes. Each theme is open to submissions for 2–3 months. Authors are required to express their interest upon submission. If the article fits within the scope of the theme and is accepted following peer review, the APC will be waived. If the number of successful submissions for a theme exceeds our budget, we close the theme early, so we encourage you to submit early during the time window if the fee waiver is important to you.

The first theme was “Psychological and Quality of Life/Functional Aspects of Thrombosis and Hemostasis Disorders,” and this call was closed early because of its success. Fourteen published articles covered broad areas of venous thromboembolism, hemophilia, anticoagulation adherence, and the impact of anticoagulation complications on patients. I was intrigued by findings on quality of life after pulmonary embolism, negative lasting effects of how providers communicate with patients at the time of diagnosis of venous thromboembolism, the positive impact of fitness and personal training in people with hemophilia, , and negative impact of heavy menstrual bleeding on quality of life in people with bleeding disorders or treated with anticoagulants. , A provocative Forum on the concept of living with a “hemophilia‐free mind” was also included.  The second theme was, “Platelet‐Coagulation Interface, including in COVID‐19,” and we recently completed a third theme, “Risk Prediction and Anticoagulation in Stroke.” Articles submitted for these themes are starting to appear.

The current thematic call for papers is “Implementation Science: the Science of Optimizing Patient Care.” It will be open through the end of March 2022, unless it is fully subscribed before then. Implementation science is the study of methods to promote adoption and integration of evidence‐based practice. We hope that authors studying how to deliver high‐quality care and bring clinical innovations more rapidly and efficiently to patients will take advantage of this opportunity.

As always, readers can learn about this and other journal programs through our Twitter feed, @RPTHJournal, on our website (www.rpth.isth.org), and by announcements in the ISTH Pulse.

Open access publishing is a route to wider dissemination of research. It allows access along with the ability to reuse and share material freely. As a gold open access journal, RPTH strives to be at the forefront of dissemination of the latest breakthroughs in the field through novel publishing programs such as Thematic Calls for Science.