An interview with Dr Charles Young, founding Editor-in-Chief of Research Connections

We’re pleased to appoint Dr Charles Young as the founding editor-in-chief of Research Connections.

Research Connections is our new broad scope, global healthcare journal, which will support the scientific community driving increased understanding and awareness of diseases, treatments, health technologies, and health processes through the publication of high-quality and scientifically rigorous research.

The journal joins over 150 open access journals in our collection, and will allow important research to be discovered and reused worldwide, as well as provide authors with a quick route to publication without compromising on quality.

Dr Young is an experienced, editor-in-chief, publisher, and medical writer. He trained as an emergency physician and now works in a range of clinical, academic, and commercial healthcare leadership roles.

Here, we find out about Dr Young’s motivation for taking on the role and his vision for the journal.

Can you share a bit about your background and what led you to this role?

As an emergency physician and senior healthcare academic, I am passionate about helping individuals as well as driving real improvements in global healthcare. My background has been a mixture of clinical, academic, and commercial healthcare and so I am extremely excited about combining those three pillars into our new journal, Research Connections.

Being founding editor-in-chief is a huge opportunity for me to work with the OUP team and, together, create a market-leading journal that will have a real and measurable impact on improving people’s lives around the world. The journal will focus on existing and pioneering new research evaluated using sound science principles, and prioritize quality, reproducibility, and impact over novelty to ensure that foundational research is utilized effectively. I am also determined to make Research Connections a truly inclusive journal, ensuring we do all we can to cater to the need of the full spectrum of researchers, reviewers, and readers.

What is your vision for the future of this journal? How do you see it supporting the healthcare and research community?

Research Connections’ overarching purpose is to make the world a better place.

To achieve this purpose, my vision is that Research Connections will be internationally respected for our success, supporting clinicians and academics in their work to treat illnesses and injuries. By driving increased understanding and awareness of diseases, treatments, health technologies, and health processes through the publication of high-quality and scientifically rigorous research, we will create an inclusive world-leading healthcare community with the journal at its centre. We will publish a wide range of article types and have an ethos of open and transparent publication processes, enhancing the healthcare evidence base, furthering research insight, and ultimately, supporting medical decision-making. We will work closely with a broad range of globally prestigious medical societies and associations who are part of OUP’s respected publishing programme.

And crucially, we will always remember that our role is to serve our authors, reviewers, and readers, ensuring that they receive a high-quality service so that, as a community, we can further the advancement of healthcare to relieve suffering and make the world a better place.

As you begin shaping the Research Connections community—bringing together editors, reviewers, authors, and readers—what message would you share with someone discovering the journal for the first time? What makes this community valuable, and why should they be part of it?

For people discovering the journal for the first time, I want them to feel welcome, I want them to be impressed by what they see, and I want them to intuitively understand how to interact with us as a reader, author, reviewer, or—better still—all three of those roles!

Our real value to global healthcare will be to work together as a community with a shared purpose, and through that collective approach, make progress that would not have been possible as more disparate individuals or groups. What makes us special is our commitment and ability to be inclusive, rigorous, and bold.

You can find out more about Research Connections—and how you can contribute as an editor, reviewer, author, and reader—here.