Peer-reviewed preprints and the Publish-Review-Curate model

The traditional scientific publication model, characterized by gate-keeping editorial decisions, has come under increasing criticism. Opponents argue that it is too slow, opaque, unfair, lacking in qualifications, dominated by a small group of individuals, inefficient, and even obsolete. In response to these critiques, two alternatives have gained traction: peer-reviewed preprints and the Publish-Review-Curate (PRC) model (Stern & O’Shea, 2019 and Liverpool, 2023). Both models share two common steps:

Step 1: Authors decide when to make their articles publicly available by depositing them as preprints on preprint servers or institutional open archives.
Step 2: These preprints are then formally reviewed by specialized services (such as Review Commons, PREreview, Peer Community In (PCI), etc.), and the reviews are made publicly accessible.

The Publish-Review-Curate model includes an additional step: curation. In the following, we will understand the curation of articles as a selective process leading to the presentation of articles in a collection organised by a journal or another service, a definition close to that of Google’s English dictionary provided by Oxford Languages. Note that some colleagues use a more extended definition for curation, ranging from simple compilation to certification of articles (Corker et al., 2024). Certain curation services (e.g., journals) select and incorporate reviewed preprints into their curated collections, providing them with an added layer of recognition that non-curated preprints do not receive.

Peer-reviewed preprints and the Publish-Review-Curate model are garnering increasing interest from various stakeholders: funders (e.g., cOAlition S), pro-preprint organizations (e.g., ASAPbio), publishers (such as those participating in the ‘Supporting interoperability of preprint peer review metadata’ workshop held on October 17 & 18 at Hinxton Hall, UK, co-organized by Europe PMC and ASAPbio), and even journals (e.g., PCI-friendly journals).

One notable example of an organisation that applies the Publish-Review-Curate (PRC) model is eLife (Hyde et al., 2022). In this model, authors first deposit their preprints and then submit them to eLife for peer review. After a round of reviews and the collection of a publication fee, eLife has, since 2023, removed the traditional accept/reject decisions. Instead, it focuses on public reviews and qualitative editorial assessments of preprints. The preprint is published on eLife’s website as a “Reviewed Preprint,” along with the editorial assessment and public reviews.

Another comparison often made with the PRC model is the Peer Community In (PCI) evaluation process. In PCI, authors publish their articles as preprints on open archives, submit them to a thematic PCI, and undergo one or more rounds of peer review. Afterwards, they receive a final editorial decision (accept/reject). Accepted articles are publicly recommended by PCI, along with peer reviews, editorial decisions, and author responses. PCI’s process mirrors the PRC model, with curation—marked by the preprint’s acceptance and publication of a recommendation text—following peer review. However, PCI only makes reviews public if the article is accepted.

Ambiguities in Peer-Reviewed Preprints and the PRC Model

Two key ambiguities blur the definition of peer-reviewed preprints and the PRC model:

Peer review is often confused with a system of validating or rejecting articles. However, in most peer-reviewed preprint services, no formal decision (validation/non-validation) is made, unlike in traditional journals. A preprint undergoing peer review is not classified as “validated” or “not validated” based solely on reviews. Reviews simply offer critical perspectives, both positive and negative, and it remains up to the reader to interpret them. Additionally, the peer-review process does not inherently guarantee the quality of an article. It offers critical opinions by reviewers but does not provide a definitive validation. It provides the reader with positive and negative critical elements based on a more or less thorough and more or less complete expertise. It is not a validation but the opinion of one or more reviewers on all or part of the article. Readers often cannot draw conclusions about validation based on peer reviews because they are generally complex and lengthy, making them difficult to understand for at least part of the readership. Only experts who take the time to do so have complete expert access to the dialogue between reviewers and authors. In addition, readers often lack the context to judge the quality of reviews, as they are unable to evaluate how reviewers are selected, their expertise on the subject, or their potential conflicts of interest. This opacity contrasts with the role of editors, who do possess this information and make informed decisions on validation.

Consequently, listing, declaring, and marking preprints as “reviewed” will likely give rise to new problems, because readers may not be able to interpret peer reviews correctly and may mistakenly think that ‘reviewed’ means ‘validated’.

Concerning the definition of a peer reviewed preprint, cOAlition S position is interesting. It states that:

cOAlition S added a note to clarify what is an “implicit or explicit validation”:

This cOAlition S precision makes it possible to indicate which peer-reviewed preprints have “equivalent merit and status as peer-reviewed publications that are published in a recognised journal or on a platform.”

Curation can be viewed as a positive classification, selection and (more or less) highlighting of reviewed articles. Curation is generally associated with positive qualitative selection: an article is selected for inclusion in a collection based on its – generally positive – qualities.

Curation is sometimes the consequence of an evaluation process resulting from peer review. It is either a form of validation (e.g. classic publication, public recommendation of preprint by PCI) or a form of highlighting articles that have already been validated (e.g. F1000prime then Faculty Opinion, blogs, news & views, recommendation of postprint by PCI, etc.).

In theory, however, curation can be carried out without prior or simultaneous validation (see Stern & O’Shea, 2019 and Corker et al., 2024). Curation may not always follow a peer-review process leading to validation or may not be automatically associated with a validation process.

This can cause a problem if the reader mistakenly thinks that such curated peer-reviewed preprints are validated preprints.

Binary validation as a solution

Unlike many supporters of peer-reviewed preprints and, more generally, critics of gate-keeping of the traditional publication system, at PCI, we advocate for the binary validation of peer-reviewed preprints, a clear accept/reject decision after peer review. Our view is that the curation phase of the PRC model would benefit from a positive editorial decision. This approach has an advantage: it sends a clear signal to the reader, confirming that part of the scientific community has evaluated and validated the article.

Note that not all scientific communities have the same acceptance/rejection criteria. Some communities have stricter, more selective scientific criteria than others. The minimum acceptable strength of evidence varies between scientific journals. These variations partly explain why the same study can be published in one journal but not in another, regardless of any arguments relating to the originality or impact of the study. For example, the journals in which it is possible to publish after a recommendation by PCI Registered Reports (PCI RR) have different “Minimum required level of bias control to protect against prior data observation”.

This variation in scientific stringency to obtain validation does not call gatekeeping into question but explicitly qualifies and nuances it. The criteria need only be objective and transparent, as with PCI RR-friendly journals. The diversity and heterogeneity of acceptance thresholds reflect a diversity of communities and validation bodies. In the classic publication ecosystem, this diversity is reflected by a diversity of scientific journals. Authors are more or less familiar with this diversity, and readers are partly familiar with it. In a Publish-Review-Curate ecosystem based on validation prior to or at the same time as curation, a diversity of thresholds can be expected or even desired to obtain validation and, therefore, curation.

Two models of PRC with validation

We believe that the Publish-Review-Curate model cannot stand by itself: it should incorporate a binary editorial decision, which should be made before or during curation. We therefore propose two forms of PRC, both of which incorporate a validation step based on peer reviews:

1. Publish-Review-Curate(=Validate): In this model, curation itself acts as validation based on peer reviews. This is what most scientific journals do. For example, a journal may publish a peer-reviewed preprint based on peer reviews produced by another service, as PCI-friendly journals or journals associated with Review Commons would do.
2. Publish-Review(=>Validate)-Curate: Here, peer reviews lead to validation before the curation step. Curation gives additional value to an article that has already received an (editorial) acceptance decision based on peer review. This is what F1000 used to do or what Nature (and other journals) do by publishing News & Views to highlight an already published article.

PRC in light of the criticism of traditional publication models

Finally, let’s reassess the criticisms of the traditional publication model—long, opaque, unfair, unqualified, monopolized, inefficient, and obsolete—in the context of a PRC model with binary validation:

In sum, the PRC model, when combined with binary validation, offers a robust alternative to traditional publishing, addressing its key criticisms while retaining the benefits of peer review and curation.

Denis Bourguet

Denis Bourguet is a senior scientist at the French National Institute for Research in Agronomy and environment (INRAE). He works in Montpellier, France, in evolutionary biology on pesticide resistance evolution. He co-founded PCI in late 2016 and co-manages PCI since then.

View all posts by Denis Bourguet

Thomas Guillemaud

Thomas Guillemaud is a senior scientist at the French National Institute for Research in Agronomy and environment (INRAE). He works in Sophia Antipolis, France, on the evolutionary biology aspects of biological invasions. He co-founded PCI in late 2016 and co-manages PCI since then.

View all posts by Thomas Guillemaud