Open Research Europe is the open access publishing service of the European Commission. One of Open Research Europe’s main novelties is the way it organizes the publication and peer review process.
Charlie Vickers (Senior Editorial Assistant) gives us a brief introduction to the open, post-publication peer review model that Open Research Europe uses and discusses the reviewer checks that allow this model to work.

What is post-publication open peer review?

Traditionally, peer reviews use a single- or double-blind model. In both cases, any revisions or changes requested by the peer reviewers must be implemented before the article can be published, and positive reviews are a condition for the publication of the paper. At Open Research Europe (ORE), we do things differently.

The key thing to note about ORE’s model is that the peer review process takes place after the article has already been published, as publication triggers peer review. Therefore, publication does not depend on the review; it takes place beforehand. Utilizing the version system for articles, suggestions from the reviewers can be incorporated into new versions of the article. This builds on the original work and improves it as new versions are published. In many ways this is like lifting the lid on the peer review process, allowing authors and readers to follow the peer review process in real time.

Another important detail with the ORE peer review model is that it is all open. This means that peer review reports, names and affiliations of reviewers, and even the author’s responses to the reviewers are all visible. The reviewers are also asked to assign a peer review status to reflect their overall opinion of what improvements they feel the authors need to make, as well as highlighting some of the strengths of the paper. Articles do not pass peer review until they have reached a particular threshold of peer review status i.e. two ‘Approved’ statuses, or two ‘Approved with Reservations’ statuses and one ‘Approved’ status.

Additionally, the peer review process is driven through author suggestions meaning that the submitting author of the paper is in control of the peer review process. Having authors suggest the reviewers helps ensure that the right people with the correct expertise are reviewing that article which helps to relieve some of the peer-review burden on the community. Authors can suggest reviewers in two ways. The first is by entering suitable reviewers into the system based on their experience. The second is using the peer reviewer selector tool that the ORE platform provides. This peer reviewer selector tool uses AI to suggest reviewers based upon the content of the author’s article. Authors continue to suggest a list of reviewers until the peer review process has been complete. In turn, we undertake several checks on the reviewers to ensure they are qualified. If the authors do require support in selecting additional suitable reviewers, the ORE peer review team can provide suggestions for the authors to verify them as suitable reviewers to invite.

The peer reviewer checks

• The first check our team will do is to check whether the author’s suggestions have demonstrable experience within the same field as the topic of the submitted article. For some subject areas, this can mean having published three articles as the lead author in the last five years. However, in subjects where expertise is not always measured by publication history, we will explore other criteria for suitability.
  
• The editorial team will then check whether the suggested reviewer is suitability qualified to act as a reviewer. This is generally a PhD/MD or equivalent relevant qualification, but we understand there are many fields where these qualifications are not as common. We can consider other factors as well.
  
• The reviewers should be impartial and there should be no competing interests between authors and reviewers. There are numerous potential competing interests, with some examples shown on our policies page. Some of the main competing interests to look out for when suggesting reviewers are:
  • They are not part of the same institute as any of the authors of the paper
  • They have not published with any of the lead authors within the last 3 years (before the article is published)
  • They are not a close collaborator with any of the authors
    
• Our peer review team also works hard to ensure the pool of reviewers that are invited are diverse. To encourage inclusivity in our peer review process, we encourage authors to suggest reviewers that are diverse with regards to their gender, geographic location, and career stage (whilst still adhering to our reviewer criteria). Our peer review team wants the authors to achieve a global perspective on their article, which can be helped by getting reviewers from around the world.

All these checks allow us to know that every researcher we invite to peer review for ORE will be able to provide a current, in-depth, and knowledgeable review. However, we understand these checks may not be appropriate for your article and the field of research, so please let us know if you feel that is the case. We consider each reviewer on a case by case basis and are always happy to discuss this with you!