PCI manifesto

So far, 1258 colleagues have signed the manifesto (see below) including this commitment – see the list of signatures below.

Signatories may, at any time, exercise their rights of access and rectification, or their right of opposition by contacting contact [ @ ] peercommunityin.org

See the full list of signatures

Manifesto

PCI has now been running for five years, and has evaluated and recommended hundreds of high-quality preprints. At the end of 2021, we launched Peer Community Journal, to enable authors of PCI-recommended preprints to publish their articles in an open access journal for free. More than 200 authors have already opted to publish their recommended preprints in Peer Community Journal. This is a first step, but we need to aim even higher for the scientific and academic community to reclaim control over the publication process.

Our goal is for Peer Community Journal to provide an efficient route for open access publication at no cost to authors or readers. The Peer Community In model allows high-quality research to be reviewed and published, while saving the scientific community millions of dollars in subscription and publication fees.

Authors are sometimes reluctant to submit their articles (and particularly their best articles) to a new journal: they are not sure whether other researchers will do the same and they fear that their articles will eventually be published in an unknown and little-used journal. With PCI and Peer Community Journal, we can count on a very large community: nearly 100 managing board members, 1,700 recommenders (associate editors), and 5,000 users. PCI and Peer Community Journal are already supported by more than 100 institutions.

There is safety in numbers, and researchers, as individuals, need to be reassured that they are not alone. We propose to create the trust required for researchers to publish in Peer Community Journal without hesitation, by asking researchers working in disciplines covered by the current PCIs to make the following public statement:

“ I agree to submit at least one of my best articles to a PCI for peer review within 15 months and, if recommended, to publish it in Peer Community Journal.“

“I support PCI and adhere to the idea of making Peer Community Journal a widely-used venue for the publication of high-quality articles.”

and, to ensure that they are not alone:

“I will be bound by this promise only if at least 500 other researchers make the same commitment.“

PCI and Peer Community Journal are counting on you to join us and spread the word all around you, to convince colleagues, mentors, mentees, and friends, and to help us reach the target of 500 submissions that would make all the difference.

If we join forces and make this commitment, we can make Peer Community Journal not only a repository of high-quality research but also a widely-used place to publish. This will move the community towards publication models that are truly open and accessible to all. So, let us join forces to make the academia a better place!