Short Abstract

This session will showcase groups involved in preprint peer review and curation, and the benefits and challenges in bringing this approach to metascience research. It aims to inspire new thinking and solutions around transforming the communication of metascience research for everyone’s benefit.

Long Abstract

The growing number of papers published as preprints over recent years, including some of the latest findings in metascience, highlights how publishing innovations can accelerate and democratise access to new research. It also shows the need for systems of review that help readers assess the quality of these findings.

This panel will bring together organizations involved in the open review and curation of preprints to make them more useful for authors, readers, the broader research community and the public. The discussion will include representatives from: ASAPbio crowd review, which promotes the productive use of preprints for research dissemination and transparent peer review, including those covering metascience; eLife, which introduced a publishing model focused on the public review and assessment of preprints; Lifecycle Journal, a pilot project from COS assessing an alternative publish-before-review model using distributed independent evaluations for continuous assessment throughout the research lifecycle; and MetaROR, a platform that leverages the ‘publish, review, curate’ model to improve the dissemination and evaluation of metascience. We will also hear from HHMI and PREreview describing how they have developed peer review training programs that use preprints to create public review reports.

Together, we will discuss the benefits that these initiatives bring to metascience research and everyone who engages with it. We will also share some of the challenges in bringing new modes of publishing and peer review and how these could be overcome through initiatives, such as peer review training. We hope to inspire new thinking and solutions around transforming research communication.