bioRxiv review is not peer review — it is a two-stage screening process. In-house staff and volunteer Principal Investigators check every submission for plagiarism, non-scientific content, inappropriate article types, and material that could endanger public health, typically within 24-48 hours. Roughly 5% of submissions do not meet bioRxiv’s posting criteria and are returned, escalated for discussion, or declined outright.
bioRxiv is a preprint server for the life sciences, operated by the non-profit openRxiv, that posts complete but unpublished manuscripts online before formal journal peer review begins. Understanding what its screening actually checks for — and what happens when a submission does not clear it — helps authors avoid the delays that come from an incomplete or out-of-scope submission.
- What does bioRxiv’s review actually screen for?
- How does the two-stage screening process work?
- What happens when a preprint is held, escalated, or declined?
- What should authors do if their submission is held or declined?
- Frequently asked questions
- What this means for institutions and authors
What does bioRxiv’s review actually screen for?
bioRxiv’s screening exists to keep the server usable and safe, not to certify scientific validity. Every submission is checked against a fixed set of criteria before it is allowed to post.
According to bioRxiv’s own FAQ, all articles are screened on submission for four things: plagiarism, non-scientific content, inappropriate article types, and material that could endanger the health of individual patients or the public. That last category explicitly includes studies describing dual-use research of concern, and work that challenges or could compromise accepted public health advice on infectious disease transmission, immunisation, or therapy.
- Automated text analysis for plagiarism and content already published elsewhere
- Manual checks that the manuscript is a genuine research article, not a review, opinion piece, protocol-only submission, or product announcement
- Screening for images or details that could identify a patient or study participant
- Assessment of whether findings could alarm or mislead the public if posted without peer review
Manuscripts already published in a journal cannot be submitted, and a preprint cannot sit on both bioRxiv and its sister server medRxiv simultaneously — doing so results in withdrawal of the article.
How does the two-stage screening process work?
bioRxiv runs a defined two-step pipeline rather than a single editorial check. Both stages must be passed before a manuscript posts.
The first stage is in-house screening. According to bioRxiv’s screening-procedures notice, staff with scientific and editorial backgrounds verify that submission fields are complete, that group authors are not mis-listed as individuals, and that the manuscript is an appropriate article type — a research article is accepted; a narrative review, commentary, opinion piece, or standalone protocol is not. This stage also runs the automated plagiarism check.
The second stage is Affiliate screening. Volunteer Principal Investigators, known as bioRxiv Affiliates, ask two questions: does the manuscript present biological research, and is there potential for public harm from posting it as a preprint? If an Affiliate has concerns on either point, the submission is flagged for further in-house discussion rather than posted automatically.
bioRxiv states that this combined process “typically takes 24–48 hours, but can take longer over weekends and holidays, or if the submission requires in-house discussion and further correspondence with authors.” Its FAQ separately notes preprints “usually appear on bioRxiv within 72 hours” once screening and formatting are complete — the wider window accounts for queueing and the PDF-to-HTML conversion that follows posting.
What happens when a preprint is held, escalated, or declined?
Screening produces one of five outcomes, not a simple accept/reject binary. Manuscripts can be escalated at any stage for discussion by bioRxiv’s Content Team and, where needed, its Founders or external advisors — commonly because the article type or content falls outside scope, or because it contains conclusions that could cause public alarm, such as data disputing an established toxicity or carcinogenicity finding.
| Outcome | What it means | Typical trigger | Author’s next step |
|---|---|---|---|
| Posted | Preprint goes live, usually within 24-72 hours | Passes in-house and Affiliate checks | No action needed; revisions remain possible later |
| Returned for correction | Sent back before posting | Missing metadata, formatting errors, incomplete author or funder details | Correct fields in the Author Area and resubmit |
| Escalated for discussion | Flagged for internal review | Scope question, or risk of misleading/alarming the public | Await correspondence; respond promptly to queries |
| Transferred to medRxiv | bioRxiv submission closed; author redirected by email | Manuscript judged better suited to medRxiv’s clinical/health scope | Resubmit via submit.medrxiv.org, which runs a separate screening team |
| Declined | Does not proceed to posting | Fails scope or safety criteria, or judged “better disseminated after peer review” due to public-impact risk | Address the specific concern and pursue journal peer review, or resubmit once the issue is resolved |
bioRxiv reports that approximately 5% of submissions are found not to meet its posting criteria. Content judged out of scope for public-health reasons is typically redirected to medRxiv rather than declined outright, since the two servers are co-managed but apply separate screening policies.
What should authors do if their submission is held or declined?
The correct response depends on which of the outcomes above applies. Treating every hold as a rejection — or every rejection as final — wastes time that a targeted fix would save.
- If returned for correction: fix the flagged metadata field (author list, affiliations, funder ROR ID, special characters) directly in the Author Area; this is usually resolved within a day.
- If escalated: respond promptly and specifically to any correspondence from bioRxiv’s Content Team — vague or delayed replies extend the discussion period.
- If redirected to medRxiv: follow the email instructions to resubmit at submit.medrxiv.org; the bioRxiv submission is closed and cannot be revived.
- If declined for scope or article type: check the FAQ’s excluded-content list before resubmitting — narrative reviews, case reports, hypothesis papers without new data, and standalone protocols are structurally out of scope, not fixable by rewording.
- If declined for public-harm risk: bioRxiv’s stated position is that such findings are “better disseminated after peer review” — pursue a journal submission rather than repeated resubmission to the preprint server.
Authors remain solely responsible for submitted content, including material produced with generative AI tools; AI systems are not permitted to be listed as authors. Institutional research-integrity offices should treat this authorial-responsibility principle consistently with their own authorship criteria and contributor-responsibility standards, since a preprint host’s screening does not substitute for an institution’s own compliance checks.
Frequently asked questions
Is bioRxiv reputable?
Yes. bioRxiv is widely used across the life sciences and is indexed by Google Scholar, Crossref, Europe PubMed Central, and PubMed for NIH-funded work. It is not peer-reviewed, but its screening process and non-profit governance under openRxiv are well documented and independently verifiable.
Why do people use bioRxiv?
Authors use bioRxiv because formal peer review can take months, and preprints let other scientists see, discuss, and comment on findings immediately. It also lets researchers establish priority via a timestamped, citable DOI before journal publication concludes.
Who owns bioRxiv?
bioRxiv is operated by openRxiv, a non-profit founded by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. It is funded by a consortium including the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Sergey Brin Family Foundation, Caltech, Imperial College London, MIT, and Stanford — no single commercial owner controls the server.
Is bioRxiv peer-reviewed?
No. bioRxiv preprints are not certified by peer review, edited, or typeset before posting. Some manuscripts undergo peer review elsewhere concurrently, and those reviews may appear alongside the preprint on bioRxiv’s dashboard, but posting itself only requires passing screening.
What this means for institutions and authors
bioRxiv’s screening model draws a clear line that research-administration offices should reinforce internally: screening filters for scope, safety, and originality, while peer review evaluates scientific validity. The ICMJE’s Recommendations similarly caution that preprints have not been peer reviewed and should be identified as such wherever they are cited or discussed publicly. COPE’s guidance on preprints makes the same distinction, placing responsibility for research-integrity safeguards at this stage jointly on the server’s screening and the submitting institution.
For authors, the practical takeaway is straightforward: a held or declined submission is almost always a scope, formatting, or safety issue with a defined remedy, not a verdict on the science. Reading bioRxiv’s excluded-content list and funder/author metadata requirements before submission remains the single most effective way to clear bioRxiv review on the first pass.
