Become a PCI-friendly journal
What are PCI-friendly journals?
PCI-friendly journals have agreed to consider the PCI evaluation in their assessment of articles. Once a journal becomes PCI-friendly, its name appears in our public list of journal adopters (see below).
There are two types of PCI-friendly journals
PCI-friendly journals make two types of commitment concerning PCI assessments:
Category 1: Journals committed to accepting PCI-recommended articles without further peer review
- The journal endorses the PCI review criteria and agrees to accept, without further peer review, any manuscript obtaining a positive final recommendation from PCI while also meeting any additional procedural requirements that do not require further scientific evaluation by the journal. Such additional requirements could include falling within a defined disciplinary scope.
- Note that subjective judgments about the importance, novelty, or timeliness of a research question are not relevant to the judgment of research quality at PCI and are not assessed as an additional requirement by the journal.
- The journal accepts PCI-recommended articles for publication even if the reviews performed by PCI are anonymous.
- Similarly, the journal will not relitigate any scientific elements of the study that PCI has already approved.
- The journal agrees to display clearly, on the homepage of the article, a note indicating that the evaluation process was carried out by PCI of the following type:
Editor’s note: This article has been reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Evolutionary Biology: Mathieu Joron (2020) Studying genetic antagonisms as drivers of genome evolution. Peer Community in Evolutionary Biology, 100108. https://doi.org/10.24072/pci.evolbiol.100108
Category 2: Journals providing authors with a fast response
- These journals do not automatically accept PCI-recommended articles, but have agreed to the following commitment: once the article is submitted by the authors, the journal agrees to provide the authors with one of the following three responses, within a specified short turnaround time (e.g. 5 days):
- Acceptance with minor modifications with no further peer review,
- Need for further peer review before decision,
- Not interested.
- In case of acceptance, we recommend the journal to display clearly on the homepage of the article a note indicating that the evaluation process was carried out entirely or partly by PCI, of the following type:
Editors’ note: A previous version of this article was reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Evolutionary Biology: Mathieu Joron (2020) Studying genetic antagonisms as drivers of genome evolution. Peer Community in Evolutionary Biology, 100108. https://doi.org/10.24072/pci.evolbiol.100108
List of PCI-friendly journals
PCI Registered Reports (PCI RR) has a specific evaluation procedure, with a two-stage peer review process. It also has its own list of PCI RR-friendly journals.
I want my journal to be PCI-friendly
Applications are currently open and applicants are welcome to fill in the application form or to contact PCI with any additional queries.
FAQ
What are the main benefits of PCI for my journal?
PCI benefits all stakeholders. We expect the initiative to be popular with authors because of the rigor and transparency of the review process, the track record of our Managing Board and recommenders, and the fact that a single PCI review process will provide authors with a gateway to a wide range of reputable PCI-friendly journals. With PCI becoming a clearing house for preprint submissions, PCI-friendly journals will, in turn, benefit from the opportunity to publish high-quality preprints transparently reviewed according to rigorous standards by scientists and editors who are at the forefront of the initiative, at no additional cost.
PCI-friendly journals:
- Can receive articles that have already been evaluated, at no additional cost.
- Have access to a pool of preprints that their associate editors (who are recommenders in PCI) can “drive” for publication in their journal.
- May become more attractive to authors than other journals.
- Can display a transparent editorial process with no change in their evaluation procedure.
If a recommended preprint is published in my journal, will it also be published by PCI?
No. PCI itself publishes only the recommendation (PCI editorial decision) and reviews (signed or anonymous).
As the articles recommended by PCI remain on preprint servers (e.g., arXiv, bioRXiv, Zenodo) during the whole PCI process, they will fall within the terms of your journal’s preprint policy and will not constitute dual publication. Each accepted preprint can therefore be published in no more than one peer reviewed journal.
At what stage in the PCI process would authors submit a preprint to a PCI-friendly journal?
The authors can choose to submit their article to a PCI-friendly journal only once the PCI recommendation process is over (recommendation published on the PCI website).
Are you suggesting that the PCI track replaces my journal’s internal track?
No. A PCI-friendly journal can continue to offer both internal and PCI tracks.
Is there a subscription fee for becoming a PCI-friendly journal?
No. Becoming PCI-friendly is free of charge.
Can a PCI-friendly journal still charge an APC or any other fee?
Yes. Journals are free to charge such fees if they wish. Authors who receive a recommendation are free to choose to publish in Peer Community Journal, to submit to any PCI-friendly journals, to choose other journals, or to keep their preprint on the preprint server; PCI thus creates an open market.
What is the complete set of requirements for becoming a PCI-friendly journal committed to accepting PCI recommended articles?
To become a PCI-friendly journal committed to accepting PCI-recommended articles without further peer review, a journal should have the following features:
- to have a preprint-compatible submission policy
- to commit to accepting the judgment of the PCI Managing Board and recommenders (in consultation with specialist reviewers) concerning the fulfillment of PCI review criteria
- to commit to accepting PCI judgments without the need for additional peer review
- to commit to accepting PCI judgments based on anonymous reviews, without asking to disclose the reviewers’ identity.
The journals can set additional requirements that go beyond PCI requirements, specifically concerning:
- Compatibility with the disciplinary scope of the journal
- Complying with journal requirements concerning formatting and word counts
- Payment of any applicable APCs or other fees (e.g. submission fees, page charges, color figure charges, etc.)
When would a journal prefer to become a PCI-friendly journal committed to providing the authors with a fast response rather than accepting PCI-recommended preprints with no further peer review?
A journal may prefer to be listed as providing the authors with a fast response if it wishes to reserve the right to perform additional peer reviews of preprints recommended by PCI. For example, the journal may wish to determine the publishability of a preprint by applying additional review criteria not assessed by PCI, or the journal may wish to perform its own scientific evaluation of the existing PCI review criteria.
When would a journal prefer to become a PCI-friendly journal committed to accepting PCI recommended preprints with no further peer review rather than providing the authors with a fast response?
A journal may choose to commit to accepting PCI-recommended preprints with no further peer review if it agrees with PCI policies and seeks to maximise opportunities for publishing articles recommended by PCI. If a large array of such journals is available, other journals may be less attractive to authors because of the likelihood of having to undergo further peer review on top of the already-intensive PCI review process, and the lower certainty of publication relative to a journal committed to accepting PCI recommended articles.
Would my journal need to adopt a general open review policy to become committed to accepting PCI-recommended articles with no further peer review?
No. PCI does not interfere with journal policies. If your journal has a closed review process, there is no need to change your journal policies, provided that you are happy for preprints submitted to your journal via the PCI track to have open review histories. Any preprint submitted via the PCI track will contain a URL to the reviews at PCI, which are published with a DOI, so your journal does not need to create an infrastructure for supporting open review.
What additional infrastructure do I need to establish in my journal to become PCI-friendly?
None. Authors submit to a journal only after they have obtained a PCI recommendation, so the entire PCI review process is governed outside the journal. Authors can therefore submit a preprint to your journal via the journal’s existing infrastructure.
Can a PCI-friendly journal committed to providing authors with fast answers obtain the identity of an anonymous reviewer?
Yes. For reviewers choosing to remain anonymous, PCI will ask permission from the reviewers for their names to be passed on confidentially to the PCI-friendly journals publishing the articles concerned.
Note that this does not apply to journals committed to accepting PCI recommended articles because these journals agree to publish articles recommended by a PCI, whoever the reviewers may be.
Can members of my editorial board (including the Editor-in-Chief) also serve as PCI recommenders?
Yes. We welcome such proposals, which further strengthen the expertise of the growing PCI community. Interested applicants are invited to contact us at contact [ a.t ] peercommunityin [ d.o.t. ] org. All applications are considered on a case-by-case basis by the Managing Boards of the corresponding PCIs.
How will PCI-friendly journals appear on the PCI website?
The list of PCI-friendly journals will be arranged in a tabular format, with one entry per journal. Separate fields will provide the following information:
- Journal name
- Commitment concerning PCI evaluation
- Submission procedure (contact name and address of the journal’s editor(s) responsible for handling the submission of preprints recommended by PCI)
- Owner type (society journal, research institute journal, publisher)
- Publisher type (for profit, non profit)
- Economic model (subscription-based, Diamond OA, APC-based OA, Hybrid, P2O)
How financially sustainable is the PCI model?
The PCI initiative is funded by a distributed network of universities, institutions, and learned societies (see here for a complete list). The operating costs of the initiative are very low (see a cost breakdown here) and the distributed model makes it both highly sustainable and resilient to the potential loss of any individual funder.
Can a journal be PCI-friendly with only some PCIs?
No (except PCI-RR, which is very specific). When a journal agrees to become a PCI-friendly journal, it commits to considering all recommended preprints in the same way regardless of the PCI recommending the preprint. However, a PCI-friendly journal always has the option to reject a recommended preprint that does not fall within its disciplinary scope or does not comply with journal requirements concerning formatting and word count.
Is Peer Community Journal a threat to my journal?
No, there is room for everyone. PCI-friendly journals are long-term established journals, with specific editorial policies and with specific communities of researchers seeking to publish in them. A scientist used to publishing in a learned society journal, for example, is likely to continue to submit to this journal as a first choice.