PCI structure & history

The PCI association is a not-for-profit and non-commercial organisation created in December 2016. Its members are scientists, and it is managed by scientists, for scientists. See the PCI statutes updated in January 2022 (French, English translation) and its internal rules (French, English translation).

The PCI association is made up of

• Its members:
  • The representatives of the managing boards of all the thematic PCIs
  • The 3 founders of PCI (Denis Bourguet, Benoit Facon and Thomas Guillemaud)
  • The support officer of PCI (currently Marjolaine Hamelin)
• A support team
  • Four IT engineers (Alex Dehne Garcia, Michael Ajanaku, Olivier Fambon and Sylvain Piry)

The roles of the PCI association are to define the strategy of PCI, to create/abolish thematic PCIs and to fund and organise the functioning of the various thematic PCIs and Peer Community Journal.

The PCI association is supported by more than 100 research institutions. See the description of its economic model.

Each thematic PCI includes:

• Many recommenders, playing a role analogous to that of journal editors
• A managing board (periodically renewed)
• A representative of the managing board, member of the PCI association
• A few administrators (usually the founders of the thematic PCI) responsible for dealing with technical problems and administrative issues.

External actors not belonging to PCI make the thematic PCIs work: authors submit articles, reviewers evaluate articles and users read evaluations.

The role of the thematic PCIs is to organise the evaluation of preprints in their field and, for the texts accepted, to publish a recommendation text with the reviews, converting the recommended text into a final, valid and citable article.

See the list of the thematic PCIs.

The Peer Community Journal (starting fall 2021) is endowed with:

• An editorial board (composed of all the managing boards of all the thematic PCIs)
• An executive board (the members of the board of PCI)
• A managing co-ordinator

PCI was founded in December 2016 by 3 INRAE’s scientists, Denis Bourguet, Benoit Facon and Thomas Guillemaud, with the aim of regaining control of the scientific publication process and disconnecting it from financial issues. Marjolaine Hamelin then joined PCI as Support Officer in 2021.