At Open Research Europe, we’re proud to offer a fully open and transparent post-publication peer review process. Our innovative model enables peer review to become a constructive and collaborative conversation within the research community.

We believe that this transparency throughout the peer review process is crucial for quality and accountability because this makes it easier to know how research can be trusted. Our peer review process is formal, invited, and open, which means that reports are published alongside articles with reviewer names and affiliations. We do not have any editors who make decisions to accept or reject articles, which reduces delays for publication. Instead, the peer review takes place after the article has been published, which means that research can be read and cited while being assessed by expert reviewers.

In a recent blog post, we explored the Open Research Europe peer review model in more depth – what it is, how it works, and how we carry out peer reviewer checks and support authors when they need our help. Now, we’re delving into the benefits of open peer review and the value it adds for authors, reviewers and the wider research community.

How does open peer review benefit authors?

Here’s how our innovative model benefits authors:

• Empowers authors to lead the process by suggesting reviewers themselves. Download our handy authors guide to help find reviewers.
• Enables conversation within the research community with fully transparent peer review
• Reduces the possibility of bias, as everything is openly available to all
• Accelerates the pace of discovery by publishing research before it undergoes peer review
• Improves the quality of peer review by allowing everyone to benefit and learn from reading reviewer feedback

View this detailed infographic which explains every step of our open, post-publication peer review process.

What are the benefits of open peer review for reviewers?

Here’s how reviewers benefit from our open peer review model:

• Allows reviewers to get credit and recognition for their work
• Enables career development with co-reviewing opportunities, particularly with early career researchers (ECRs)
• Enables collaboration with others through our open peer review model
• Enables reviewers to see how many times their report has been viewed with our viewing metrics
• Enhances the visibility, discoverability and citability of research with an assigned Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

It’s important to note that our Editorial team are here to help with finding reviewers, and they must approve all reviewers suggested by the author. To maintain integrity of this process, the Editorial team, not the author, communicates directly with reviewers. Reviewer reports are also checked by our team to make sure they meet our Peer Reviewer Code of Conduct, and then published for anyone to read.

Would you like to become a reviewer? Make sure you meet our Reviewer Criteria and use this form to apply.

If you’d like more information about our open peer review model, please get in touch with our team, who will be happy to answer any questions you may have.