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Publishers collaborate to increase peer-review efficiency

Pandemic has created ‘new urgency’ to openly and rapidly share and review research

Several academic publishers are working together to try to maximise the efficiency of peer review during the coronavirus pandemic.

In an open letter on 27 April, the Royal Society, eLife, Hindawi, PeerJ, PLOS, F1000 Research, FAIRsharing, Outbreak Science, and PREreview, said the Covid-19 pandemic had created a “new urgency” to openly and rapidly share and review research on the virus.

With the endorsement of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, they urge reviewers and authors with suitable expertise to sign up to their “rapid reviewer pool” and commit to quick reviewing times, as well as to let their reviews and identities be shared among publishers and journals as needed.

They also call for volunteer reviewers to identify and highlight Covid-19 preprints “as early as possible” and for authors to support reviewers and publishers by ensuring their work is made available “as rapidly as possible”.

Meanwhile, the group calls on publishers and editors to “actively facilitate posting of Covid-19 preprints to preprint servers” and consider comments on preprints during the journal peer-review process.

In addition, their letter adds, publishers and editors should ensure all Covid-19 submissions include a mandatory data availability statement.

“Efficient assessment of scientific research has never been more important,” said Phil Hurst, publisher at the Royal Society. “By working with other publishers, we aim to speed up triage and peer review to help ensure accurate research on Covid-19 is published more quickly.”