Photo: PRC supporters’ workshop
At a meeting held on the 3rd December 2025 at Kings College, Cambridge over 50 delegates, comprising researchers, publishers, librarians, research funders and scholarly communication infrastructure providers, came together to discuss the Publish, Review, Curate (PRC) publishing model. The meeting, which was organised by COAR and the University of Cambridge Library and Archives with contributions from ASAPbio, aimed to showcase various PRC initiatives from around the world and illustrate its many benefits such as increased rigour, efficiency, and transparency.
The overarching outcome from the meeting was that the current model of scholarly publishing – based on subscriptions, APCs and opaque peer review processes – was in need of reform and that PRC is a viable and compelling alternative and one that is already available for researchers to use.
Why PRC should be the future of publishing!
In the keynote session, Ludo Waltman, Professor of Quantitative Science Studies at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University and President of ASAPbio, defined PRC as a model for scholarly publishing initiatives that build on the growing trend of preprint sharing and one that typically involves communities who peer review openly available preprints, providing an evaluation and/or endorsement of the research.
Photo: Ludo Waltman
Crucially, Waltman highlighted how momentum for PRC is growing, as a result of three compounding factors.
First, there is a huge concern around issues of research integrity, exemplified by the fact that more than 10,000 research articles were retracted in 2023.
Second, there is growing recognition – as evidenced through the work of CoARA, DORA and others – for reform of research assessment and the need to go beyond crude journal metrics such as impact factors and article count, to recognise a much wider range of research outputs, including peer review reports.
Third, there is growing political support for innovative and alternative publishing models, as seen for example in the recent cOAlition S 2026-2030 strategy and a recent report of the European University Association.
Waltman also stressed that this momentum may, over time, fade and that if there is an appetite amongst the research community to support a scholarly communication system that enables rapid, open, transparent, and equitable sharing of trustworthy knowledge, now is the time to seize this opportunity. Specifically, researchers were invited to support a number of steps including preprinting their research, making public the peer review reports they write through to publishing their work on dedicated PRC platforms, or even setting up their own PRC platforms.
The different flavours of PRC
To highlight a variety of PRC platforms, delegates were introduced to four working models; eLife, Transformations: A DARIAH Journal, MetaROR, and Peer Community in (PCI).
The different approaches adopted by these four examples aptly demonstrate the flexibility of the PRC model and how it can support a wide range of workflows and scholarly communities. This diversity in practice was welcomed by all speakers, arguing that this was another strength of the PRC model. The speakers noted that the PRC model stands in contrast to the “one size fits all” approach favoured by the more traditional academic publishing models.
In the afternoon, delegates were provided with an overview as to how the Open Research team at the University of Cambridge is working to encourage innovative, publishing models. Specifically, this work includes support for academic led publishing and Diamond OA journals, such as theCambridge Educational Research e-Journal and the overlay journal, Discrete Analysis.
In addition, the Universities’ repository system (Apollo) has recently implemented the COAR Notify protocol, which enables bi-directional communication between peer review services, overlay journals and repositories (including preprint servers, like bioRxiv). Implementing COAR Notify helps PRC scale more quickly and easily.
In the final session of the day, three active researchers based at the University of Cambridge spoke about their experiences of the current publishing eco-system. In summary, there was a clear sense that the traditional publishing model needs to change, and as such they are willing to explore new models, such as PRC. However, for such models to become mainstream, it was also made clear that the way researchers are assessed must also change.
Photo: Meeting organisers and speakers
Next steps
To help ensure that the momentum from this meeting, and the support for the PRC model, is built upon, COAR and ASAPbio will convene a working group early in 2026 to help define a “PRC Alliance”.
We imagine that such an Alliance will act as a convener for the diverse PRC community in order to raise the visibility and status of PRC and to facilitate greater coordination across PRC initiatives by acting as a mechanism for addressing shared issues and challenges.
In the second half of 2026, the working group will present its plan for the PRC Alliance, based on input from a broad range of interested parties, with the aspiration that the Alliance is formally launched in the third quarter of 2026.
The working group will be composed of up to 20 people representing review and/or curation services and organisations actively supporting PRC models.
For more information, please contact Kathleen Shearer, Executive Director of COAR: [email protected]
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This meeting was organised by COAR and the University of Cambridge Libraries and Archives, with thanks to Arcadia, ASAPbio, and participating PRC initiatives for their various contributions.