Webinar // Peer Community In & Peer Community Journal, two open access tools for more transparent and less costly evaluations and publications

As part of UM's Open Science policy, the UM Research Support Team is launching a series of webinars for the scientific community.

With a short format (20 to 40 min presentation, followed by time for discussion), these workshops will alternate between theoretical contributions and practical demonstrations on Open Science, scientific publications and research data.

The webinar on April 02, 2024, from 11am to 12pm, will be presented by Denis Bourguet, INRAE researcher and co-founder of PCI, on the theme: Peer Community In & Peer Community Journal, two open access tools for more transparent and less expensive evaluations and publications.

The Peer Community In (PCI) initiative aims to revolutionize the scientific publication process by creating communities of researchers who evaluate and recommend preprints in their respective fields. The initiative, which is free of charge for authors and readers, aims to reduce the costs associated with publication, while ensuring the robustness and transparency of the editorial process. The recommendation of a preprint by an IBO does not prevent authors from submitting it to a traditional journal, and in particular to "IBO-friendly journals" that take IBO evaluations into account. In addition, Peer Community Journal (PCJ) enables authors to publish their recommended preprints free of charge and with open access.

Since 2017, 17 PCIs have been created, with over 2,000 publishers and around 100 "PCI-friendly journals". Since 2024, scientists have been able to submit their preprints to these different PCIs directly from the HAL portal. PCI and PCJ are recognized and supported by over 150 scientific organizations/institutions.