PREreview is a nonprofit platform that lets researchers write and publish open, community-driven peer reviews of preprints before those preprints go through — or instead of going through — traditional journal peer review. It was built specifically to widen who gets to participate in peer review, with a particular focus on early-career researchers (ECRs) and historically excluded groups in science. Where a preprint server hosts a manuscript and a journal runs closed, invitation-only peer review, PREreview sits in between: it lets any registered user request feedback on a preprint, and lets any registered reviewer respond with a structured rapid review or a full-length written review, openly and citably.
What PREreview is (and isn’t)
PREreview is not a preprint server — it does not host manuscripts itself. Instead, it pulls in the metadata and PDF of a preprint already posted to a supported server (PREreview lists dozens of connected servers including bioRxiv, arXiv, SciELO Preprints, and Preprints.org) and builds a review page around it. Anyone with a free PREreview account, authenticated via ORCID iD, can then submit a review of that preprint.
It is also not a replacement for a journal’s editorial process — PREreview does not make accept/reject decisions, assign an editor, or produce a single authoritative verdict. It produces a visible, citable record of community feedback that sits alongside the preprint, which authors can use to revise their manuscript, and which readers can use to gauge how the work has held up under scrutiny before (or instead of) formal publication.
How reviewing works on the platform
PREreview supports two review formats, and reviewers can use either or both on the same preprint:
- Rapid reviews. A structured, short-form review built around roughly a dozen fixed yes/no/not-sure/not-applicable questions covering things like whether the methods are clearly described and whether the data support the conclusions. This format is designed to lower the barrier to giving feedback — a rapid review can be completed in minutes rather than requiring the multi-page critique associated with traditional peer review.
- Long-form reviews. A full narrative review, written either solo or collaboratively with other reviewers, closer in depth to a conventional peer-review report. PREreview explicitly supports co-authored reviews, which is unusual — most journal peer-review systems assign one reviewer per report.
Reviewers can register and act under their real, verified identity or under a public pseudonym — PREreview allows a “pseudonymous persona” specifically to lower the risk barrier for early-career reviewers who may be reluctant to publicly critique more senior authors’ work under their own name. Registration itself requires an ORCID iD, which anchors every review to a verifiable researcher account even when the review is published under a pseudonym.
Users can also comment on and endorse other people’s reviews, and can join or start topic- or field-specific “Communities” — groups that coordinate review activity around a shared subject area, journal club, or preprint server, rather than reviewing being a purely individual, unconnected activity.
How reviews get published and cited
Every PREreview is deposited to a dedicated Zenodo Community, which mints it a real DOI and publishes it under a CC BY 4.0 license by default. That combination — DOI plus an open license — is what makes a PREreview a genuine, citable scholarly output rather than an informal comment: it can be listed on a reviewer’s ORCID record as a peer-review contribution, referenced in a CV or grant application, and picked up by any tool that indexes Zenodo or DOI metadata.
This is the same underlying pattern used across the open peer-review ecosystem — a review is treated as its own citable research object rather than a private communication between reviewer and editor — and it’s part of what distinguishes open peer review generally from closed, single- or double-anonymized models. See CASRAI’s single-blind vs. double-blind vs. open peer review comparison for how these models differ on identity disclosure and report publication.
Origins and governance
PREreview was founded in 2017 by a group of early-career researchers who wanted to make preprint feedback faster, more open, and more accessible to reviewers outside the small pool typically invited by journal editors. In 2019 it became a fiscally sponsored project of Code for Science & Society (CS&S), a US-registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides fiscal sponsorship, legal, and operational infrastructure to open-source and open-science projects — the same kind of arrangement several other community science infrastructure projects use rather than incorporating independently. PREreview has reported funding support from organizations including the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Gates Foundation, the Mozilla Foundation, and Wellcome.
Beyond the review platform itself, PREreview runs an “Open Reviewers” mentoring and training program aimed at building peer-review skills among researchers — particularly ECRs — who may otherwise never be invited to review for a journal early in their career, since journal editors typically source reviewers from their own networks or from authors’ reference lists.
How PREreview compares to other preprint-review initiatives
PREreview is one of several efforts built around reviewing preprints in the open, but its mechanics differ from the others CASRAI covers:
- Vs. Peer Community In (PCI). PCI organizes free, formal peer review through subject-specific “PCI” communities and issues a public recommendation once a preprint passes review, functioning closer to an editorial process with recommenders and named reviewers. PREreview has no recommendation or accept/endorse decision — it’s an open feedback stream, not a formal recommendation service.
- Vs. Review Commons. Review Commons produces a single portable, publisher-independent referee report intended to transfer with the manuscript into a partner journal’s editorial process. PREreview’s reviews are not designed to transfer into a specific journal’s workflow — they exist as a standing, citable public record attached to the preprint itself.
- Vs. eLife’s Reviewed Preprints model. eLife commissions its own editors and invited reviewers to produce an eLife Assessment and public reviews for preprints it selects — reviewers are recruited and coordinated by eLife’s editorial team. PREreview review activity is open and self-organized: any registered user can review any connected preprint, without an editor selecting the preprint or assigning reviewers.
All four sit within the broader shift toward reviewing research before or independent of a single journal’s accept/reject gate — sometimes described under the Publish, Review, Curate (PRC) model that ASAPbio has promoted — but they solve different parts of that problem: formal recommendation (PCI), portable referee reports (Review Commons), editorially curated review (eLife), and open, low-barrier community feedback (PREreview).
Why this matters for research administrators and institutions
For CASRAI’s audience, PREreview is relevant in a few concrete ways:
- CV and assessment credit. Because PREreviews carry a DOI and can be linked to a reviewer’s ORCID record as a peer-review contribution, institutions building researcher-assessment or promotion criteria that recognize peer review as scholarly service have a citable, verifiable record to point to — relevant to the broader push toward equitable peer review practices and recognition of review labor.
- Preprint policy design. Funders and institutions writing preprint policies increasingly need to account for community review layers like PREreview alongside the preprint server itself when deciding what counts as “reviewed” for compliance purposes — this is distinct from journal peer review and should be described as such in policy language.
- Training pipeline for reviewers. The Open Reviewers program is a concrete, low-stakes on-ramp research offices can point early-career researchers toward when building peer-review skills before those researchers are invited to review for journals.
Frequently asked questions
Is a PREreview the same as a journal peer review?
No. A PREreview is community feedback on a preprint, produced by self-selected reviewers with no editor assigning them and no accept/reject decision attached. Journal peer review is typically editor-managed, uses reviewers the editor invites, and results in a decision (accept, revise, or reject) tied to publication in that journal. Some journals and initiatives (like Review Commons) are designed to feed into a journal’s decision process; PREreview is not.
Do I need to be an expert or hold a PhD to review on PREreview?
No. PREreview’s stated mission is to widen participation in peer review beyond the small pool of senior researchers journal editors typically invite, and it explicitly supports early-career researchers as reviewers. An ORCID iD is required to register, but there is no seniority or credential gate to submitting a review.
Can I stay anonymous when I review?
You can review under a public pseudonym rather than your real name. Registration still requires an ORCID iD, so the platform can verify you’re a real, accountable researcher account, but the identity shown on the published review can be pseudonymous.
Does a PREreview count as a citable output?
Yes, in the sense that it receives a DOI (via deposit to Zenodo) and is published under a CC BY 4.0 license, making it a stable, citable, openly licensed research object — the same underlying infrastructure used for citing datasets or preprints themselves. Whether a given funder, department, or promotion committee formally counts it as “credit” is a policy decision made by that institution, not something PREreview itself determines.
Who funds and governs PREreview?
PREreview was founded in 2017 and has operated since 2019 as a fiscally sponsored project of Code for Science & Society, a US 501(c)(3) nonprofit. It has reported funding support from foundations including the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Gates Foundation, the Mozilla Foundation, and Wellcome.
