2025 PCI’s finances and article costs

2025 PCI Resources

As the “Finances and Cost Structure of PCI” webpage explains, Peer Community In’s (PCI) financial resources are primarily derived from numerous small annual public subventions. In 2025, PCI received 99 such subventions, totalling 301 K€. Thanks to ongoing recruitment of new sponsors and the renewal of subsidies from previous donors, this amount has steadily increased over time: approximately 50K€ in 2019, 65K€ in 2020, 170K€ in 2021, 200K€ in 2022, 226K€ in 2023, 228K€ in 2024 and 301K€ in 2025. In 2025, 30 new sponsors supported PCI, including prestigious organisations such as the University of Cambridge, the University of Groningen, the University of Göttingen, Université de Lausanne, Stockholm University, and Université Paris-Dauphine – Paris IX.

PCI’s second main resource is in-kind contributions from research organisations. The Executive Bureau of PCI comprises two researchers and an engineer from the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), primarily dedicating their time to managing PCI and the Peer Community Journal (PCJ). Moreover, the CNRS has temporarily appointed a web developer to work part-time for PCI. Like other journals and publishing platforms, reviewers, referees, and board members contribute considerable work. Yet, these labour costs are not reflected in the annual balance sheet. In 2025, PCI engaged volunteer workers, including Juliette Tariel-Adam, Gavin Douglas, Camille-Sophie Cozzarolo, Marta Arzarello, and Bjorn Bartholdy, to format articles for the PCJ. We warmly thank them for their voluntary contributions, which have been very valuable.

In total, PCI’s resources for 2025 – 301 K€ from donations and 215 K€ in salaries as in-kind donations – amounted to 516 K€.

Article Costs at PCI and Peer Community Journal

We consider only operational costs to calculate the cost of services rendered by PCI and PCJ — the cost of evaluating and recommending preprints and registered reports for PCI, and publishing articles for PCJ. As shown in the details of 2025 finances below, these operational costs amounted to 203K€ (178K€ and 25K€ for PCI and PCJ, respectively), or 52K€ (49K€ and 3K€ for PCI and PCJ, respectively) if we exclude in-kind contributions of salaries. Investment costs, totalling 142K€ in 2025, are not included in this calculation as the benefits of these investments are realised in subsequent accounting periods. The “Finances and Cost Structure of PCI” webpage explains the rationale behind this exclusion. Note that if we exclude salaries as in-kind donations, the costs of PCI and PCJ in 2025 are very low, at about 49K€ and 3K€, respectively.

PCI’s primary activity is to evaluate preprints and registered reports and, if they receive positive evaluations, potentially recommend them. From this perspective, the total cost of PCI’s service in 2025 is 178K€ (49K€ without in-kind contributions). This breaks down to approximately 342€ (88€ without in-kind contributions) per preprint and registered report submission, based on 521 submissions in 2025, or 718€ (198€ without in-kind contributions) per recommended preprint for 248 recommendations in 2025. The cost of hosting a preprint on an open archive or preprint server is very low, ranging from $10 to a few tens of dollars (see, for example, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2015.19102 or https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2014.16643 or the 2020 annual report of arXiv, https://info.arxiv.org/about/reports/2020_arXiv_annual_report.pdf). If we use 20€ as an estimate of the preprint server cost, then the total cost of a preprint recommended by PCI amounts to 738€ (218€ without in-kind contributions). Notably, the number of submissions has been consistently increasing and is likely to continue growing. The same is true for recommended preprints. Consequently, the cost per submission and recommended preprint decreases and will continue to decrease as the number of submissions rises (see Figure 1 below and the details in the “Finances and Cost Structure of PCI” webpage).

Regarding PCJ, the annual operating costs are 25K€, or 3K€ if we exclude in-kind contributions of salaries. The cost of publishing an article with PCJ comes to 200€ (21€ without in-kind contributions) per article for the 140 articles published in 2025. Additionally, our web publisher, the Centre Mersenne, has incurred costs estimated at around 200€ per article. The total cost per article published by PCJ (preprint hosting, preprint recommendation, PCJ costs, and Centre Mersenne’s costs) amounts to 1,138€ (439€ excluding in-kind contributions). 

Similar to evaluation costs, publishing costs decrease and will continue to decrease over time as the number of publications increases (see Figure 1 below and the details on the “Finances and Cost Structure of PCI” webpage).

The average cost of PCI per recommended preprint and of PCJ per published articles decreases over time (Figure 1). 

Figure 1 – Average cost of PCI per recommended preprint and of PCJ per published articles, including in-kind contributions.

Savings achieved with PCI and PCJ

As the “Finances and Cost Structure of PCI” webpage explains, the current average cost of article publication in STM is about 3,000€ per article (note that this amount does not include in-kind contributions). This extremely high figure represents an appalling amount we want to avoid ever approaching.
The costs incurred by PCI per recommended preprint and published articles are well below this limit. A recommended preprint is a finalised article published by a preprint server or an open archive, evaluated and validated by the scientific community. We hence need to compare the average cost to society of 3,000€ with the cost of a preprint recommended by PCI. The cost of a preprint recommended by PCI is 718€ or 198€, excluding in-kind donations. We can, therefore, guarantee average savings of 2,282€ or 2,802€ per item. Given the volume of 248 preprints recommended in 2025, the total saving is 566K€ or 695K€, excluding in-kind donations.
Some observers may retort that an article published as a preprint and then accepted for recommendation by PCI does not have the same value as an article published in a traditional journal. This is highly debatable, but let’s accept the idea for the moment. If authors don’t perceive a PCI-recommended preprint as valuable enough, they automatically have the option to transfer their preprint for publication in the companion journal, Peer Community Journal (PCJ). We therefore need to compare the average cost of publication of 3,000€ per article with the cost of publishing in PCJ. The total cost of an article published by PCJ is 1,138€ or 439€ without considering in-kind donations. The average savings compared with 3,000€ per article are therefore 1,862€ or 2,561€, depending on whether there are in-kind contributions. Multiplying this by 140, the number of articles published in 2024 saves around 261K€ or 359K€, excluding in-kind contributions.

2025 Finances 

Income

Public subventions from universities, university libraries, and research organisations in 2025:

Between 1€ and 999€

• University of York
• UMinho
• Ghent University
• Université Marie et Louis Pasteur
• La Rochelle Université
• ENS Lyon
• Université Clermont Auvergne
• ASNR
• Institut Pasteur
• Nantes Université
• Université de Limoges
• Université de Toulon
• Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne
• University of Liverpool
• Imperial College London

Between 1,000€ and 1,999€

• Iowa State University
• Bibliothèques de Montréal 2025
• KU Leuven
• ZPID – Leibniz Institute for Psychology
• Tilburg University
• CSIC
• Library of the University of Ottawa
• Université de Lausanne
• Département ACT INRAE
• Département Génétique Animale INRAE
• Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
• Université Paris-Dauphine – Paris IX
• INRIA
• Université de Reims Champagne Ardennes
• Université de Saint-Etienne
• University of Sheffield
• University of Leeds
• University of Melbourne
• Université d’Angers
• Département SA INRAE
• Département MathNum INRAE
• Département TRANSFORM INRAE
• Département AgroEcoSystem INRAE
• Institut des Sciences de l’Évolution de Montpellier
• University of Bern
• IRD
• Université de Tours
• Université de Toulouse
• Université Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines
• Université de Lille
• AgroParisTech
• Université de Bretagne Occidentale
• University of Texas Austin

Between 2,000€ and 2,999€

• Université Grenoble Alpes
• EPHE
• SFE2
• National Library of Sweden
• University of Leiden
• Université de Liège
• Stockholm University
• University Sussex
• Département PHASE INRAE
• Département Ecodiv INRAE
• University of Milan
• University of Graz
• Réseau URFIST
• Université de Bordeaux
• Université de Bourgogne Europe
• University College London
• Queen Mary University of London
• University of Bristol
• Harvard Library
• Université de Perpignan
• FCT|FCCN

Between 3,000€ and 4,999€

• University of Exeter
• Université Libre de Bruxelles
• VU Amsterdam
• COMUE de Toulouse
• Université Paris Nanterre
• Aix Marseille Université
• Université de Lorraine
• IFREMER
• Université de Strasbourg
• Université de Rennes
• Sorbonne Université 
• Université de Lyon 1
• University of Utrecht
• University of Groningen

Between 5,000 and 5,999€

• DipSO INRAE
• Université Côte d’Azur
• INSERM
• ETH Zurich
• Erasmus University Rotterdam
• Université Paris-Saclay
• Université de Montpellier
• University of Cambridge

Over 10,000€

• CNRS Écologie & Environnement
• Johns Hopkins University
• CNRS DDOR

Total Public subventions: 301 K€

In-kind donations from research organisations and universities

• Reviewers, recommenders, managing board members: huge wage bill not accounted for, as usual, as in every scientific journal
• INRAE: salaries of two researchers (50% each) and one engineer (90%): 215 K€

Total in-kind donations: 215 K€

Expenses

Operating costs for PCI

• Bank fees: 520 €
• Website hosting: 16 K€
• Annual subscription to services: 8 K€
• Accountant and auditor: 7 K€
• Travels (hotel, transport, catering), communication, small equipment: 17 K€
• Salaries (in-kind donation from INRAE) for PCI management: 129 K€

Total Operating costs PCI: 178 K€

Operating costs for PCJ

• Website hosting: 3 K€
• Salaries (in-kind donation from INRAE and benevolent salaries) for PCJ management: 22 K€

Total Operating costs PCJ: 25 K€

Investment costs for PCI

• Website development: + 78  K€
• Salaries (in-kind donation from INRAE) for tests and development management: 64 K€

Total Investment: 142 K€