In today’s fast-paced world, new discoveries are emerging at ever-increasing rates. Yet many journals continue to have delays of 12–24 months from preprint submission to publication. In addition, public trust in science and scholarship is in decline in many countries, undermining fact-based decision making and the perceived value of higher education in general.

For scholarly publishing to remain relevant, it is crucial that we adopt a more efficient and transparent publishing system; one that ensures rapid access to research outputs and that provides open and transparent access to reviews.

An innovative, new publishing model is emerging that offers meaningful solutions to these challenges

The so called “Publish-Review-Curate” (PRC) model builds on the increasingly common practice of preprint sharing being adopted in many fields, as researchers seek to share their research findings more quickly.

PRC involves community evaluation of these preprints. The term represents a diverse group of initiatives that are reviewing preprints based on a variety of approaches – from overlay journals that more closely mirror a typical journal publication, to initiatives that are adopting more innovative practices. See Peer Community In, Episcience, eLife, PREreview, and Psicológica, MetaROR, for example.

A key requirement in this evolving ecosystem is some kind of ‘interoperability’ between preprint repositories and external peer review and evaluation services. In 2021, COAR launched the Notify Project to develop a standard, interoperable mechanism for linking preprints with peer reviews. The project has since been funded by the Arcadia Fund and has developed the COAR Notify Protocol.

Learn more

Understanding Publish, Review, Curate

Interested in developing an overlay journal? Read our document that outlines the functional requirements for overlay journal platforms.