Peer Community in

Stimulating: Each PCI recommends remarkable articles in its field.

Open: PCI is an open-science initiative based on:

• • open access to the recommended articles (on preprint servers and open archives)
  • open access to the evaluation (reviews, author’s responses and editorial decisions)
  • data, scripts and code available to the readers
  • an open infrastructure: The code, page texts (help texts, about, instructions, etc.) and automatic Email templates are available on the PCI github repository https://github.com/pci-dev.

Free: The whole PCI process is free for any user (readers, authors…). The websites of the PCIs are freely accessible.

Independent: PCI in not-for-profit and non-commercial. It is managed by scientists for scientists. Conflicts of interest are carefully checked at each step of the process.

Inclusive: An article recommended by a PCI may subsequently be published in a traditional journal (although this is not the goal of the PCIs).

Reliable: Decisions are based on sound evaluations by at least 2 reviewers. The Managing Board checks the quality of reviews, decisions, and recommendations.

Peer Community In complies with publishing ethics guidelines.

PCI is supported by

You are a: 

• Representative of a funding agency, evaluation committee, or doctoral school, click here
• Representative of a research institution or research library, click here
• Representative of an open archive or repository, click here
• Researcher, click here

If you or your organization would like to support PCI financially, click here

Symbolic sponsorship

Funding agencies, evaluation committees, and doctoral schools

Funding agencies, evaluation committees, and doctoral schools can support PCI by endorsing the following statement: “In all of its work, our organization considers articles recommended by a Peer Community In to be of the same value and to have the same status as articles published in a high-quality journal in the same discipline”.

→ If your organization would like to join the list of bodies already supporting PCI, endorse this statement, and allow PCI to display its logo on the PCI websites and other supports of communication, then a representative of your organization should complete the Endorsement Statement Questionnaire for Evaluation Bodies. You can also contact us directly: contact [ a.t ] peercommunityin [ d.o.t ] org

Research institutions (universities, university departments, institutes, scientific societies, research libraries, etc.)

Research institutions can express their interest in the development of Peer Community In by providing symbolic support to PCI meaning that they
1) publicly acknowledge the value of the PCI initiative and
2) allow PCI to display their logo on the PCI websites and other supports of communication.

→ If your organization would like to join the list of bodies already supporting PCI, and provide symbolic support for PCI (including the display of the organization’s logo on PCI communication support), then a representative of your organization should complete the Symbolic Sponsorship Questionnaire. You can also contact us directly: contact [ a.t ] peercommunityin [ d.o.t ] org

Researchers

Peer Community In was launched by scientists, to take back control of scientific publications, so that public money can be better spent on research.

As a researcher, you can support PCI:

• By submitting your article to one of the current PCIs
• By thinking about creating a new PCI in your field of research
• By joining an existing PCI as a recommender (see below the subsection RECOMMENDERS AND MANAGING BOARDS in the section How Does PCI works)
• By accepting invitations to review articles submitted to a PCI
• By making a donation to PCI

→ Contact us contact [ a.t ] peercommunityin [ d.o.t ] org for further details. 

Open archives and repositories

The Peer Community In process relies on open archives, preprint servers, and institutional repositories, and adds value to their content by providing reliable and transparent peer reviews and editorial decisions.

It is essential that these archives help readers to identify more easily the articles that have been peer-reviewed. 

As an open archive, preprint server, or institutional repository operator, you can support Peer Community In by displaying the link to the recommendation on the webpage of each preprint recommended by a PCI. 

→ Contact us contact [ a.t ] peercommunityin [ d.o.t ] org for further details. 

Financial support

Peer Community In is a non-commercial not-for-profit organization financed by public funds. Your financial support will help us to cover the functioning costs of the existing communities and to develop the project.

Institutions, universities, libraries, laboratories, or even individuals can provide financial support for Peer Community In according to a “pay what you can” annual fee model (our donors currently provide between €150 and €10,000). This support also includes allowing PCI to display the organization’s logo on the PCI websites and other supports of communication.

→ If you would like to join the list of bodies already supporting PCI, then a representative of your organization should complete the Financial Sponsorship Questionnaire. You can also contact us directly: contact [ a.t ] peercommunityin [ d.o.t ] org

→ Contact us contact [ a.t ] peercommunityin [ d.o.t ] org for further details. 

Specific recommendations are made to reviewers, recommenders and managing board members to increase equity and inclusiveness in each of their tasks.

Tools to increase equity and inclusiveness:

• Possibility to submit articles anonymously
• Transparency in the evaluation of articles
• Managing Board members take into account underrepresentation in academia when appointing new recommenders
• Template messages to recommenders and reviewers include recommendations about equity and inclusiveness
• Possibility to review anonymously

PCI has signed the Joint Statement of Principles of the Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communication (C4DISC).

1. Authors deposit a preprint on a preprint server (eg arXiv, bioRxiv, etc) or an open archive using an appropriate template for their article.
2. They submit it to the corresponding thematic PCI. If one recommender (the equivalent of an associate editor in journals) finds the preprint particularly interesting, they can initiate the evaluation process. Based on at least two high-quality reviews from reviewers, they make the decision to reject, to accept, or to request modifications.
3. If the article is accepted (after one or several rounds of review): 

• • authors must deposit the recommended version of the preprint article on the preprint server.
  • the recommender writes a short text of recommendation that is published with a DOI together with the reviews and all the editorial correspondence on the corresponding PCI website. 

4. After acceptance, authors may choose

• To publish it in Peer Community Journal as is, immediately and at no cost
• To submit it to a PCI-friendly journal (acceptance with no further peer review OR response in 5 days OR use of the PCI evaluation if appropriate).
• To submit it to other journals.

If you want to submit a registered report (an article based on preregistration), go to Peer Community in Registered Reports

For a regular preprint submission go to one of the thematic PCIs

Recommenders

Recommenders of a thematic PCI can manage the evaluation of preprint submitted to this PCI:

• The recommenders for each thematic PCI are highly competent researchers – appointed by a Managing Board – who evaluate preprints based on rigorous peer reviews.
• They have a role similar to journal associate editors: finding reviewers, obtaining peer reviews, and making editorial decisions based on these reviews.
• They may reject or recommend the preprints they are handling after one or several rounds of reviews.
• If a recommender decides to recommend an article, they write a “recommendation”, which is a short news and views with references. The recommendation is published with a DOI on the website of the corresponding PCI.
• Becoming a recommender for a thematic PCI is not associated with a substantial workload since each PCI gathers a very large number of recommenders. Most handle no more than two articles per year.

How to become a recommender

Peer Community In encourages researchers to become recommenders for all PCIs. PCI welcomes ‘early/middle-career’ scientists if they have significant experience in writing and evaluating articles. PCI focuses on bringing more people underrepresented in academia among new recommenders. New recommenders are nominated by current recommenders and approved by the Managing Board of the corresponding PCI. If you are interested in becoming a recommender, you may

• • contact PCI at contact [ a.t ] peercommunityin [ d.o.t ] org and specify which PCI you would like to join
  • or ask a current recommender of a thematic PCI to suggest your name to the Managing Board of this PCI, and then wait for their decision.

Managing boards

The Managing Board of a thematic PCI consists of a few selected recommenders. They have a role similar to editors-in-chief and are regularly replaced.

One representative per managing board is a member of the non-profit PCI organization. Hence, the representatives of all existing thematic PCIs are collectively responsible for all decisions concerning the creation of new PCIs and the development of the initiative.

The non-profit PCI organization is responsible for the creation and functioning of the various thematic PCIs. Representatives of all existing thematic PCIs collectively make decisions concerning the creation of each new thematic PCIs. If you would like to launch a new thematic PCI, you should contact a Managing Board member (or send a mail to contact [ a.t ] peercommunityin [ d.o.t ] org) and explain your project.

See the dedicated post “steps in the creation of a new PCI”.

The goal of PCI is to evaluate and recommend preprints, to make them valid, citable, and final articles. The normal outcome is to leave PCI-recommended articles on preprint servers or open repositories.

However, for various reasons, the authors of PCI-recommended articles may prefer:

• To submit their article to Peer Community Journal (published as is, for free)
• To submit their article to a PCI-friendly journal (acceptance with no further peer review OR response in 5 days OR use of the PCI evaluation if appropriate)
• To submit their article to another journal.

Authors, recommenders, and reviewers for PCI must agree to comply with the following rules:

1. Recommenders for PCI and reviewers should have no financial conflict of interest (see a definition below) relating to the articles they evaluate.
2. Authors should have no financial conflict of interest (see a definition below) relating to the articles they submit to PCI. Submitted preprints must therefore contain a section indicating that “The authors of this article declare that they have no financial conflict of interest with the content of this article.” If authors are unsure whether their article may be associated with financial conflicts of interest, they can send an Email to contact [ a.t ] peercommunityin [ d.o.t ] org to ask for clarification.
3. Authors should have as little non-financial conflict of interest (see a definition below) as possible relating to the articles they submit to PCI, although a complete absence of conflict of interest may be difficult to achieve due to the scientific interest in the subject. Such conflicts of interest must be declared by the authors in the “Conflict of interest” section of their submitted article.
4. Recommenders for PCI and reviewers should have as little non-financial conflict of interest (see a definition below) as possible relating to the articles they evaluate, although a complete absence of conflict of interest may be difficult to achieve due to the scientific interest in the subject required. For instance, recommenders for PCI and reviewers should not evaluate articles written by close colleagues and coworkers (in general, are considered “close colleagues and coworkers” people belonging to the same team in the last four years, people with whom they have had recurrent contacts to co-publish articles in the last four years, to receive joint funding in the last four years), written by authors with whom they are in scientific competition or with whom they have conflicting relationships, or written by authors whom they know evaluated – as recommender or reviewer – one or more of their own articles in the last four years, or written by family members, friends, or anyone for whom bias might affect the nature of their recommendation.
5. Reviews and recommendations should be of high quality. Reviews should be sufficiently deep and detailed for the PCI recommender handling the recommendation process to gain a full appreciation of the qualities, defects, and limitations of the article. Texts (reviews, recommendations, comments, messages to authors) will be returned to PCI recommenders and reviewers if they do not respect these rules.
6. Authors, recommenders for PCI, and reviewers must ensure that the data for recommended articles are available to readers, through deposition in an open data repository, such as Zenodo, Dryad or institutional repositories, for example. Deposited data must have a digital object identifier (DOI). Authors, recommenders, and reviewers must also check that details of the quantitative analyses (e.g. data treatment and statistical scripts in R, bioinformatic pipelines scripts, etc.) in the recommended articles are available to the readers, as appendices or supplementary online materials (in this case, the supplementary material must have a digital object identifier (DOI)), for example.

What is a conflict of interest?

• A financial interest occurs when the authors, recommenders, or reviewers:
  • Receive (or have received in the past four years) salaries, reimbursements, fees, fellowship, grants, or funding from an entity with financial interests that may be affected by the results of the research presented in the article,
  • Have shares or stocks in an entity with economic interests that may be affected by the results of the research presented in the article or
  • Hold patents linked to the research presented in the article
• Non-financial conflicts of interest include political, personal, religious, ideological, academic, and intellectual interests of the authors, recommenders, or reviewers that may be affected by the results of the research presented in the article.

The Managing Board of each thematic PCI has the right to exclude recommenders if they do not respect these rules.