Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

PeerRef is a journal-independent open peer review platform. It helps researchers verify and improve research by organising peer review of preprints and publishing peer review reports. It also provides journal editors with verified research that can be published immediately.

Traditional peer review is opaque, biased towards novel findings and reviewer networks and inefficient. It is delaying research and reducing the diversity of research.

We aim to make peer review open, provide researchers with more choice in how their research is shared and evaluated, expand the referee pool and eliminate the need for repeated peer review in successive journals.

Funders are beginning to recognise the refereed preprints.

In 2022 cOAlition S announced that they consider peer reviewed preprints to be of equivalent merit to peer-reviewed journal publications.

Several research funders have also individually committed to including peer-reviewed preprints in their evaluation processes.

EMBO consider PeerRef to be a trusted independent preprint peer-review platform. Refereed preprints that have peer review organised by PeerRef can therefore be used in EMBO’s funding decisions. This is dependant on the author receiving a packages of a preprint, at least two thorough reviewers’ reports, and the authors’ response.

PeerRef is the only journal-independent peer review service to actively organise peer review and reduce the barriers to accessing peer review. We are designing our processes to enable us to scale and serve all research communities.

PeerRef launched in September 2021 and in the initial stages, we are covered the cost of operations ourselves.

We have received startup investment from Bethnal Green Ventures, Europe’s leading early-stage tech for good VC.

PeerRef is a journal-independent open peer review platform. We help researchers verify and improve research by organising peer review of preprints and publishing peer review reports. We also help journal editors accelerate the publishing process by enabling them to use PeerRef reviewer reports in publication decisions.

PeerRef generates revenue through partnerships with publishers and a freemium model where authors can pay for a priority service.

Suitable referees are identified using in-house and third-party tools use various databases including our own, Open Alex, PMC, ASAPbio’s reviewer network.

The referees will be relevant and active researchers that have completed a PhD or will be an industry expert.

Yes, you are welcome to recommend suitable referees for your manuscript.

Everyone will have different circumstances, so we do not have specific rules on this. However, if you have already submitted the manuscript to a journal, we do not recommend using PeerRef's service. Please be mindful that referees spend a lot of time and effort on peer review. So, if you expect to hear back from journal reviewers, we suggest you focus on these reviews. This will stop a duplication of effort. If you request review from PeerRef at the same time as submitting the manuscript to a journal, we recommend that you make sure you are not breaking any of the journal's policies.