Submit to PCI-friendly journals
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 lots own list of PCI RR-friendly journals.
FAQ
Why are there PCI-friendly journals?
Because the authors may feel that the service PCI provides is not complete:
– Lack of visibility: Preprints recommended by PCI do not appear as peer-reviewed in search engine results .
– Lack of indexation: Preprints recommended by PCI are not indexed in the best-known databases (WoS, PubMed, Scopus, DOAJ), that only reference articles published in journals.
→ We will continue our efforts to have PCI-recommended preprints recognized as peer-reviewed articles of high quality, in the same way as articles published in journals.
While awaiting this recognition (which is not guaranteed and will necessarily take time), we propose to help authors publish their articles in journals if they so choose.
How does it work?
- After their preprint is recommended, authors may choose the Peer Community Journal, any PCI-friendly journal (see below), another journal, or no journal (if they prefer the article to be hosted solely on a preprint server or an open repository).
- If the authors choose to submit their article to a PCI-friendly journal committed to accepting PCI-recommended articles, the article will be accepted without further peer review, provided that the subject and type of article fall within the scope of the journal. The journal may ask for minor modifications of format.
- If the authors choose to submit their article to a PCI-friendly journal committed to providing the authors with a fast answer, they will receive a rapid response, generally within five days, indicating whether the journal is interested, whether additional reviews are needed, or whether the article is accepted with minor modifications. Following this response, the authors may decide to withdraw their article and submit it to another journal.
- The authors can successively submit their article to as many PCI-friendly journals as they choose. They can choose to submit their article to the Peer Community Journal at any time.
What are the advantages for authors?
- Authors have a better chance of publishing their article in a journal that does not request additional peer review.
- Authors ultimately have not only a publication in a journal, but also a transparent evaluation process and a recommendation text associated with their article.
- At the end of the recommendation process, authors remain free to keep their PCI-recommended preprint only on a preprint server, submit to the Peer Community Journal, to any PCI-friendly journal, or to any other journal.
- Authors can (successively and rapidly) submit their recommended preprint to various journals on the basis of the same evaluation (hence, avoiding delays caused by new rounds of peer review).
What are the advantages for recommenders and reviewers?
- Their work is more visible (and thus better recognized) because PCI-friendly journals will display it.
- Their evaluation is more useful for authors who wish to publish their recommended preprints.
- Recommenders who are editors for PCI-friendly journals can provide a more direct route to their journal without duplicating the peer review process.
- Recommenders can pick interesting preprints for the journal for which they are associate editors, strengthening their involvement in their journal.
Isn’t it a paradox to recommend preprints and to have relationships with journals?
PCI’s goal is to promote preprints and recommended preprints and their recognition as being of equivalent value to the best articles published in journals. However, authors currently need to publish in journals (for evaluation reasons, visibility, and indexation) and this situation is likely to persist for the foreseeable future. Whilst it remains necessary to publish articles in journals, PCI will help authors to publish their recommended preprints in journals with compatible characteristics (not-for-profit, diamond open-access, learned society, or research institution journals).
Can I still submit my PCI-recommended article to the journal of my choice?
Yes, the author of a PCI-recommended article can do whatever they want with their article: leave it in the preprint server/open repository, submit it to one of the PCI-friendly journals, to Peer Community Journal, or to any other journal.