A scholarly document — published by institutions, learned societies, think-tanks, or government bodies — that presents an argued perspective, policy proposal, or position for community deliberation, sometimes formally inviting structured response.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 21 May 2026

Examples

Worked examples

Is an instance
A COPE Discussion Document on AI in editorial decision-making, inviting community response

Counter-examples

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance
A peer-reviewed research article is not a discussion paper in this sense

Editorial commentary

Discussion papers occupy a space between working papers (research in progress) and policy briefs (advocacy-oriented). They are typically not peer-reviewed in the traditional sense but may be peer-vetted by the issuing institution. COPE Discussion Documents are exemplars in research integrity.

References

COPE Discussion Document series
OECD Discussion Papers

Also known as

Issues paper · Position paper (discussion)

Machine-readable encodings

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="Discussion paper"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/discussion-paper" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/discussion-paper",
  "name": "Discussion paper",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/discussion-paper",
  "description": "A scholarly document — published by institutions, learned societies, think-tanks, or government bodies — that presents an argued perspective, policy proposal, or position for community deliberation, sometimes formally inviting structured response.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/research-outputs#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/discussion-paper",
  "sameAs": [
    "Issues paper",
    "Position paper (discussion)"
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "dateModified": "2026-05-21T02:07:07",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}

Referenced across the research world

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