PeerJ journals support Peer Community in Registered Reports

by | Apr 19, 2021 | Announcement, Company News

PeerJ’s seven journals will accept articles that have been peer reviewed by the new Peer Community in Registered Reports.


PeerJ is pleased to announce that we have partnered with Peer Community In Registered Reports to facilitate the publication of Registered Reports. 

Peer Community In (PCI) is a non-profit organization, run by researchers, which provides peer review of preprints for free. Peer Community In Registered Reports (PCI RR) is a community that focuses on registered reports, which emphasize the importance of the research question and the quality of methodology by conducting peer review prior to data collection, thus shifting focus to the hypothesis and study design, rather than the results. 

The initiative is very much in line with PeerJ’s mission to give researchers the publishing tools and services they want, and aligns with our aims and ethos: serving different research communities by responding positively and cooperatively to the way they want to publish their science; driving down the the cost of publishing and providing the best possible value for money; and, most importantly, focusing on the scientific process rather than just the most sensational outcomes. 

“How many wasted research hours or months have occurred due to going down the wrong methodological path, or dubious conclusions drawn from biased and incomplete results?” asks Jason Hoyt, PeerJ co-founder. “PCI RR is a chance for research to mature as a profession with new best practices and for individual scientists to set out on the right track early on and publish better science because of it.”

Authors whose submissions are favorably peer reviewed and accepted by PCI RR will be given the option to submit their peer-reviewed article to one of 15 PCI RR-friendly journals, which include PeerJ’s seven journals:

  • PeerJ – the Journal of Life & Environmental Sciences

Other PCI RR-friendly journals are:

As a publisher of PCI RR-friendly journals, PeerJ endorses the PCI RR review criteria and commits to accepting without further peer review any manuscript that achieves a positive final recommendation from PCI RR, subject to the authors paying the applicable article processing charge or purchasing a PeerJ Lifetime membership, and the manuscript meeting formatting requirements.

At PeerJ we’ve committed to offer in-principle acceptance (IPA) to any Stage 1 Registered Report within our portoflio’s disciplinary scope that receives IPA at PCI RR, and will accept without further peer review any Stage 2 RR that has been approved by PCI RR.

Pete Binfield, Peerj co-founder, said that “we are excited to be a part of this initiative and to be able to offer the community a new way to rapidly publish their Registered Reports.”

You can read more about Peer Community in Registered Reports here and PCI RR-friendly journals here.

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