Today, November 18, 2022, we had a presentation by Thomas Guillemaud from Inrae-CNRS-Université de Nice on the Peer Community In-Registered Reports initiative. You can find the video below, followed by the abstract of the talk!
Peer Community In Registered Reports (PCI RR): from RR recommendation to (diamond open access) publication
PCI is an alternative to the current costly, non-transparent and non-reproducible publication system. PCI is a non-profit association that creates communities of researchers who evaluate (via peer reviews) and recommend preprints in their scientific field. Among these communities, PCI RR is dedicated to evaluating and recommending Registered Reports across the full spectrum of disciplines. RRs are a form of an empirical article in which study proposals are peer-reviewed and pre-accepted before research is undertaken. By deciding which articles are published based on the question and proposed methods, RRs offer a remedy for a range of research biases, including publication bias and reporting bias. Peer review for a RR takes place over two stages. At Stage 1, authors submit their research question(s), theory and hypotheses (where applicable), detailed methods and analysis plans, and any preliminary data as needed. Following detailed review and revision, Stage 1 RR can receive in-principle acceptance (IPA), which commits PCI RR to recommend the final article regardless of the outcomes, provided the authors adhere to their approved protocol and interpret the results in line with the evidence. Following IPA, authors then register their approved protocol in a recognized repository. Then, after completing the research, the authors submit a Stage 2 manuscript that includes the approved protocol plus results and discussion. The reviewers from Stage 1 then focus on compliance with protocol and whether the conclusions are justified by the evidence. When a recommender decides to recommend a report, they write a recommendation, similar to a News & Views piece, describing the context of the study and explaining why this research is particularly interesting. This recommendation and all of the editorial correspondence (reviews, recommender’s decisions, authors’ replies) associated with the recommended report are published by PCI RR and assigned a DOI. Authors of manuscripts that are positively recommended have the option to publish their articles in the growing list of PCI RR-friendly journals that have committed to accepting PCI RR recommendations without further peer review. This includes Peer Community Journal.
About the speakers:
Denis Bourguet and Thomas Guillemaud are the co-founders of PCI. They are senior scientists at the French national research institute in agronomy and environment (Inrae) where they study the evolutionary biology of pest insect species. Denis works in Montpellier, France, and Thomas works in Sophia Antipolis, France
TG: Institut Sophia Agrobiotech, Inrae-CNRS-Université de Nice, Sophia Antipolis, France
DB: CBGP, Inrae-IRD-CIRAD-Montpellier Supagro-Université de Montpellier, France