CASRAI Dictionary

Category: Guides & Explainers

Practical how-to guides, templates, checklists, and career pathways for research administrators, authors, and institutional teams.

  • ORCID Membership: Consortium vs Direct Guide

    ORCID membership is free only for individual researchers; institutions that want to integrate ORCID into their systems must pay an organisational fee, either directly to ORCID Inc. or, at a discount, through a national or regional consortium. The choice between direct membership and consortium membership determines what an institution pays, which API scopes and integration support it gets, and whether it gains a voice in ORCID’s governance.

    ORCID membership is the paid organisational tier that lets an institution connect its own systems to the ORCID registry — reading and writing data to researcher records with permission — rather than simply relying on researchers’ free, individually held ORCID iDs.

    What is ORCID membership, and how is it different from free registration?

    Individual ORCID registration is, and always will be, free: any researcher can create a 16-digit ORCID iD at orcid.org/register in under a minute and use it for life. ORCID membership is a separate, paid tier for organisations — universities, publishers, funders, and service providers — that want to integrate ORCID data into their own institutional systems rather than rely on manual, researcher-entered information.

    Membership unlocks the ORCID Member API, which allows an institution’s research information system, repository or HR platform to read and, with the researcher’s permission, write data to the ORCID registry — publications, affiliations, grants and peer review activity. Without membership, an organisation can still search the public ORCID database and encourage “Sign in with ORCID” authentication, but it cannot programmatically update records at scale.

    ORCID Inc. reports more than 1,200 member organisations worldwide, made up of both direct members and institutions that joined through a consortium, spanning universities, publishers, funders, facilities and government agencies.

    What does direct institutional membership include?

    Direct membership means an institution contracts and pays ORCID Inc. directly, with no intermediary. Under ORCID’s published 2026 fee schedule, Basic direct membership costs US$4,775 a year for non-profit and government organisations (after a standard 20% non-profit discount) and US$5,975 for commercial organisations. Premium direct membership — which adds priority support, on-demand reporting and a customised onboarding — costs US$9,550 a year for smaller non-profit organisations (under US$200 million in annual revenue or funds) and rises to US$23,880 for larger non-profits above that threshold.

    Direct members manage their own ORCID integration: applying for membership, renewing annually, handling invoicing, and owning their API credentials without a consortium administrator in the loop. This suits institutions with in-house developer capacity that want a direct line to ORCID’s own support team and full control over procurement terms.

    • Standard application, renewal and invoicing handled directly with ORCID Inc.
    • Full Member API access to read and write ORCID record data with permission
    • Ability to negotiate specific procurement or legal requirements within ORCID’s standard framework
    • Additional integrations available at US$3,585 each per year

    What does consortium membership include, and how does it cut costs?

    Consortium membership is open only to non-profit and government organisations. A consortium lead — typically a national research infrastructure body — negotiates a single block agreement with ORCID and then apportions fees across member institutions, all of whom automatically receive Premium-equivalent access. In the UK, Jisc administers the national ORCID consortium, offering reduced membership costs plus UK-based technical and community support through a dedicated support site. Equivalent consortia operate elsewhere: the ORCID US Community is administered by Lyrasis, the Health Research Alliance runs a health-research-focused consortium with five premium API keys per member, and IReL administers the Irish Research eLibrary consortium.

    ORCID’s consortium fee table is tiered by both institutional budget size and the number of organisations in the consortium: a five-member consortium of small non-profits (under US$10 million annual budget) pays US$3,495 per member per year, falling to US$1,750 per member once the consortium reaches 60 or more members. Organisations in countries classified by the World Bank as Lower Income receive an 80% reduction on consortium fees, and Lower-Middle-Income organisations receive a 50% reduction, under ORCID’s Membership Equity Program — which also lowers the minimum consortium size from five to three organisations for a group’s first year.

    Consortium members gain two things direct members do not: a shared “community of practice” with peer institutions solving the same integration problems, and exclusive access to the Affiliation Manager tool, which lets non-technical staff add and update researcher affiliation data without a developer.

    Direct vs consortium: cost, API access and governance compared

    The headline trade-off is straightforward: consortium membership is cheaper and comes bundled with premium access and local support, but it hands administration to a third-party lead organisation; direct membership costs more but keeps the relationship — and the paperwork — entirely in-house.

    Factor Direct membership Consortium membership
    Who administers it ORCID Inc. directly A consortium lead (e.g. Jisc in the UK, Lyrasis for the ORCID US Community)
    2026 indicative cost US$4,775–US$23,880/year (non-profit, Basic to Premium) US$1,750–US$9,340/member/year, scaling down as consortium size grows
    Eligibility Any organisation type Non-profit and government organisations only
    API access level Basic or Premium (self-selected) Premium-equivalent, automatically
    Affiliation Manager tool Not included Included
    Local/community support ORCID’s own global support team Consortium lead’s national/regional support team
    Governance voice Eligible to stand for and vote in ORCID Board elections Eligible to stand for and vote in ORCID Board elections

    Institutional governance participation — nominating a representative for the ORCID Board and voting in annual Board elections — is a benefit of ORCID membership itself, not a differentiator between the two routes; both direct and consortium members hold this governance voice.

    Which route should an institution choose?

    For most universities and non-profit research organisations, joining an existing national or regional consortium is the more cost-effective starting point: it delivers premium API access, local implementation support and peer knowledge-sharing at a fraction of direct-membership pricing. Institutions in a country without an established consortium can use ORCID’s Membership Equity Program to form one with as few as three founding members in year one.

    Direct membership better suits organisations that are commercial (and therefore ineligible for a consortium), that need bespoke procurement or legal terms outside a consortium’s standard agreement, or that already run substantial in-house integration teams and prefer a direct relationship with ORCID’s support desk rather than a national intermediary.

    Research administration teams evaluating either route should confirm three things before signing: which access tier (Basic or Premium) the fee actually buys, whether a local consortium already exists for their jurisdiction, and whether their researcher information system vendor already holds member API credentials that could reduce the need for a separate institutional integration.

    Common questions about ORCID membership

    Does ORCID cost money?

    Individual ORCID registration is always free for researchers. Cost only applies at the organisational level: institutions pay an annual membership fee — starting around US$1,750 per member through a large consortium, or from roughly US$4,775 for direct non-profit membership — to integrate ORCID into their own systems.

    How much does it cost to register with ORCID?

    Registering for a personal ORCID iD costs nothing and takes under a minute at orcid.org/register. Institutional membership fees are separate and depend on the route chosen: direct membership is tiered by revenue, while consortium membership is tiered by both budget size and consortium membership count, per ORCID’s published 2026 fee schedule.

    What are the benefits of having institutional ORCID membership?

    Membership gives an institution Member API access to read and write trusted data — publications, affiliations, funding — directly into researcher ORCID records with permission, streamlining research information management, funder compliance reporting and automated CV generation for researchers.

    Implications for research administration

    As funders increasingly require ORCID iDs in grant applications and publishers embed them in submission workflows, institutional ORCID integration is shifting from optional to expected infrastructure. The consortium model has proven durable precisely because it converts a fixed, individually negotiated cost into a shared, scaling one — the more organisations that join a national consortium, the cheaper membership becomes for every existing member. Institutions weighing the decision should treat it as an infrastructure procurement choice tied to their research administration systems roadmap, not an isolated subscription decision.

  • medRxiv API: Endpoints, Limits and Use Cases

    The medRxiv API is a free, public REST interface — operated by openRxiv, the non-profit behind medRxiv and bioRxiv — that returns structured JSON or XML metadata for health-sciences preprints: titles, authors, abstracts, DOIs, dates, licences and subject categories. Developers query it by date range, by a fixed number of recent posts, or by a single DOI, with results paginated in batches of 100 via a cursor parameter. There is no API key requirement and no separate registration step.

    A preprint, in this context, is a complete but not-yet-peer-reviewed manuscript; the medRxiv API is the machine-readable route to the metadata that describes it, distinct from the full-text PDF/XML mining pipeline hosted separately on Amazon S3.

    What is the medRxiv API?

    The medRxiv API is a lightweight metadata service, not a search engine or a full-text repository. It shares its underlying infrastructure with the bioRxiv API — both are addressable via api.biorxiv.org or the medRxiv-branded mirror at api.medrxiv.org — because both preprint servers are co-managed by the same non-profit.

    medRxiv and bioRxiv are operated by openRxiv, a non-profit founded by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), Yale University and BMJ, and funded by contributions including the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Imperial College London and Stanford University. This governance detail matters for developers assessing service continuity: the API is not a commercial product with an SLA, but a grant- and institution-funded public good, published under the same operational umbrella that screens and posts the preprints themselves.

    medRxiv API endpoints explained

    There are two distinct endpoint families. Confusing them is the most common integration mistake developers make, since both accept the same server, interval and cursor parameters but return different content.

    Endpoint Purpose Format
    api.medrxiv.org/details/[server]/[interval]/[cursor]/[format] Preprint metadata — title, authors, abstract, DOI, posting date, category, licence json or xml
    api.medrxiv.org/details/[server]/[DOI]/na/[format] Single-manuscript lookup by DOI json or xml
    api.biorxiv.org/pubs/[server]/[interval]/[cursor] Published-version linkage — which journal, when, and the published DOI json

    server takes the value medrxiv or biorxiv. interval accepts three forms: two YYYY-MM-DD dates separated by a slash; a plain number for the N most recent posts; or a number suffixed d for the most recent N days. cursor defaults to 0 and advances in steps of 100, matching the fixed page size medRxiv documents for both endpoint families.

    A working example: https://api.medrxiv.org/details/medrxiv/2020-03-21/2020-03-24/45 returns up to 100 medRxiv records posted in that window, starting from the 45th result. Each response includes a messages array reporting the cursor position and total count, which developers should use to drive pagination rather than hard-coding offsets.

    Rate limits, formats and bulk access

    medRxiv does not publish a numeric requests-per-second quota for the metadata API. In practice, the service is engineered around cursor-based pagination capped at 100 records per call, which itself throttles realistic usage patterns without a documented rate-limit header. Developers building high-volume harvesters should paginate sequentially rather than firing parallel requests, since the API is a shared public resource funded by academic and philanthropic contributions, not a commercially provisioned endpoint.

    For anything beyond metadata — full-text PDF and XML mining at scale — medRxiv explicitly separates that workload onto a dedicated Amazon S3 requester-pays bucket (s3://medrxiv-src-monthly), rather than serving it through the JSON API. This is a deliberate architectural boundary: the metadata API is for discovery and linkage, S3 is for bulk text and data mining (TDM), and mixing the two workloads against the wrong endpoint is the most common cause of developer friction.

    • Metadata endpoints return JSON (default) or XML in OAI-PMH format.
    • Bulk full-text files are delivered monthly as MECA-format zip packages containing manifest XML, full-text XML and PDF.
    • All preprints are permanently archived at Portico, independent of the live API.

    Practical use cases for developers

    The API’s realistic use cases cluster around discovery, linkage and bibliometrics rather than full-text analysis:

    • Systematic review screening — pulling all preprints in a date range and subject category to feed a title/abstract screening pipeline before formal database searches.
    • Publication-linkage tracking — using the /pubs/ endpoint to detect when a tracked preprint has since been formally published, and in which journal.
    • Institutional repository harvesting — research offices ingesting metadata for preprints affiliated with their institution to populate internal dashboards.
    • Bibliometric and disease-surveillance research — reproducing analyses of preprinting velocity by subject category, a pattern widely used during infectious-disease outbreaks.

    A minimal Python request against the details endpoint needs no authentication:

    import requests

url = "https://api.medrxiv.org/details/medrxiv/10d/0/json"
resp = requests.get(url, timeout=30)
data = resp.json()
print(data["messages"][0]["total"], "preprints in the last 10 days")

    The R package medrxivr (rOpenSci) wraps the same endpoints for R users who prefer not to handle pagination and JSON parsing directly.

    Answer-first Q&A

    Does medRxiv have a public API?

    Yes. medRxiv provides a free, unrestricted public API at api.medrxiv.org and api.biorxiv.org, returning JSON or XML preprint metadata by date range, recent-post count, or DOI. No API key or account is required, and the same infrastructure also serves bioRxiv metadata.

    What is the difference between the bioRxiv and medRxiv APIs?

    They are the same API distinguished only by a server parameter set to medrxiv or biorxiv. Both preprint servers are co-managed by openRxiv and share identical endpoint syntax, pagination and response schemas, though each server applies separate scope and screening policies to submissions.

    How do I cite a medRxiv preprint retrieved via the API?

    Cite the preprint by its DOI, exactly as medRxiv’s own guidance specifies: author names, year, title, and “medRxiv doi: 10.1101/…”. For a specific revision, append the version-specific URL, since each version keeps the same DOI but a distinct version suffix in its address.

    Does medRxiv have an Impact Factor?

    No. medRxiv’s own FAQ states plainly: “medRxiv is not a journal and so it has no Impact Factor.” Metadata pulled via the API includes posting dates, categories and licences, but never a journal-style Impact Factor field, because none exists for preprints on the server.

    Implications and what’s next

    For institutions and research administration offices, the practical implication is that medRxiv metadata is genuinely free to harvest at scale for compliance dashboards, preprint-to-publication tracking, and REF-style output monitoring — no licensing negotiation is required, unlike many commercial bibliographic APIs. The trade-off is that developers must build their own resilience: there is no documented rate-limit contract, no SLA, and no formal versioning notice channel beyond the help pages themselves.

    The clearest forward risk is architectural drift rather than access restriction: because the API is maintained by a philanthropically funded non-profit rather than a commercial vendor, integrations should be built defensively — using the documented cursor pagination rather than assumptions about page size, and routing bulk text-mining workloads to the S3 bucket rather than the JSON endpoints, which is where undocumented load is most likely to cause friction for openRxiv’s infrastructure over time.

  • How bioRxiv Versioning Works (v1, v2, v3)

    bioRxiv versioning works by assigning every preprint a version number starting at v1 on first posting; authors can submit revisions at any time before journal acceptance, each becoming v2, v3 and so on under the same DOI, with every prior version preserved and independently citable via the “Info/History” tab. Unlike a journal correction process, there is no editor gatekeeping a revision, and nothing is ever deleted from the record.

    A bioRxiv version is a distinct, permanently archived snapshot of a preprint’s PDF, HTML and XML files, numbered sequentially (v1, v2, v3…) and linked to one persistent DOI that never changes across revisions. Understanding this versioning system — what triggers a new version, what stays fixed, and how to cite a specific one — matters for authors tracking revision history and readers who need to know exactly which version of a claim they are reading.

    What happens when a preprint first posts as v1?

    When a manuscript clears bioRxiv’s screening process — typically within 72 hours of submission, according to bioRxiv’s own FAQ — it is posted as version 1 (v1). The PDF appears first; full-text HTML and XML conversion follows 24–48 hours later.

    Each version, from v1 onward, is independently available in PDF, HTML and XML — the XML format exists for text-mining and machine-readable indexing, a detail most competing explainers omit. Once v1 is live, it is immediately assigned a DOI (via Crossref) and indexed by Google Scholar, Europe PubMed Central and the Preprint Citation Index connected to Web of Science: v1 is citable and part of the permanent scientific record from the moment it posts, not a provisional draft.

    How do authors submit a v2 or later revision?

    Authors submit revisions through the “Submit a Revision” option in their bioRxiv Author Area, locating their existing submission ID and selecting “Submit a revised manuscript.” bioRxiv’s policy states a manuscript “can be revised at any time until it is published in a journal” — there is no fixed revision window and no limit on the number of versions.

    The revision mechanism is intended for substantive changes: new datasets, re-analyses, expanded discussion, or additional supplemental information. A revision is posted under the same DOI, and — critically — the prior version is not overwritten. It remains permanently accessible through the article’s Info/History tab, so a reader can always compare what changed between v1 and v2, or v2 and v3.

    One detail rarely covered elsewhere: if a preprint was originally submitted indirectly via a journal’s own pipeline (journal-to-bioRxiv, or “J2B”), the corresponding author must first register a bioRxiv account using the same email address used at journal submission before they can access the Author Area to file a revision.

    Does the DOI change between versions, and how do you cite one?

    The DOI stays fixed across every version of a bioRxiv preprint. v1, v2 and v3 of the same manuscript all resolve through one DOI — a reader following an older citation lands on whatever version is current, with the option to step back through history.

    To cite a specific version rather than “whatever is current,” bioRxiv appends a version-specific URL to the DOI. Its FAQ gives this exact pattern:

    Element Format Example
    Standard DOI citation doi: 10.1101/[identifier] doi: 10.1101/2019.12.11.123456
    Version-specific citation DOI + version-specific URL doi: 10.1101/2019.12.11.123456 version 2, https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2019.12.11.123456v2

    This matters for reference managers such as EndNote: the DOI field should carry the persistent identifier, while the version number belongs in the URL or a note field if the citing author wants to pin the exact revision read, rather than whichever version happens to be live later.

    One exception: if a revision alters the manuscript so substantially that bioRxiv considers it a genuinely different article, the author must submit it as a new manuscript — which receives its own, separate DOI rather than becoming v2 of the original.

    What does NOT require a new version?

    Three specific cases are worth flagging because they trip up first-time bioRxiv authors and are absent from most general explainers:

    • Metadata typos. If the title, author names, affiliations or abstract in the submission form contain an error but the PDF is correct, bioRxiv auto-replaces the site metadata with text extracted from the PDF within roughly 48 hours — authors are told not to submit a full revision solely to fix this.
    • Author name changes. bioRxiv permits a “silent” first/last name update — for example after a legal name change — by direct email request, without a new version or correction notice. This excludes author removal or reordering, which need a standard revision.
    • Supplemental-file-only changes. If only supplemental files change, bioRxiv still requires them submitted together with the article file as part of a new version; a supplemental-only upload cannot be filed alone.

    What happens if an author withdraws a preprint?

    bioRxiv preprints cannot be deleted once posted, because each version carries a DOI and is indexed externally by Google Scholar and Crossref, creating a permanent footprint independent of bioRxiv’s own servers. If authors no longer stand behind their findings, the remedy is a formal withdrawal, not removal.

    To withdraw, the corresponding author uses “Submit a Withdrawal Statement” inside the same Author Area used for revisions. A withdrawal adds a “Withdrawn” watermark to the PDF of every version ever posted and posts an explanatory statement on the article page — but the original manuscript remains viewable via the Info/History tab. It is a labelled correction, not an erasure. bioRxiv notes outright removal happens only in “extremely rare cases,” for legal or safety reasons.

    Once a preprint is published in a peer-reviewed journal, no further author action is usually needed: bioRxiv automatically adds a link to the published version within approximately two weeks, and all preprint versions — v1 through the final revision — remain live alongside it.

    Common questions about bioRxiv versioning

    Can I upload a new version or replace a bioRxiv preprint?

    Authors cannot replace or delete a posted version, but they can add a new one. Using “Submit a Revision” in the Author Area at any point before journal acceptance creates the next sequential version (v2, v3…) while every earlier version stays permanently visible in the Info/History tab.

    Why does bioRxiv take so long to post a new version?

    Both initial posting and revisions go through the same screening step, which usually completes within 72 hours. Delays typically occur over weekends or holidays, or when a submission needs extra scrutiny for scope, plagiarism or safety-related content before the new version is approved.

    Does bioRxiv count as published once it has multiple versions?

    No. Additional versions do not confer peer-reviewed status. bioRxiv is explicit that it “is not a journal” and has no Impact Factor; every version, however many revisions deep, carries the standard disclaimer that the content has not been certified by peer review.

    Are previous bioRxiv versions still readable after a revision posts?

    Yes. Every prior version remains permanently accessible through the Info/History tab on the preprint’s landing page after a new version is submitted, so readers can compare v1 against later revisions rather than losing access to earlier text.

    Implications for research administrators and institutions

    For institutions tracking preprint outputs in repository or CRIS systems, the persistent-DOI-plus-version model means a single DOI can legitimately correspond to several distinct texts over time. Metadata harvesting workflows that snapshot “the” abstract or author list at ingestion risk becoming stale if a later version changes those fields — administrators should record which version number was harvested, not just the DOI.

    For funders, the NIH has stated it “encourages investigators to use interim research products, such as preprints, to speed the dissemination and enhance the rigor of their work,” and preprints of NIH-funded studies are indexed in PubMed regardless of version count. Citing the version actually reviewed — using the version-specific URL pattern above — gives reviewers an unambiguous audit trail rather than a moving target.

    As preprint volume grows, the version history itself is becoming part of the evidentiary record: it documents how a finding evolved in response to community comment before formal peer review.

  • PNAS bioRxiv Direct Submission: How B2J Works

    The PNAS bioRxiv submission pathway runs through bioRxiv’s own bioRxiv-to-journal (B2J) transfer tool, which sends manuscript files, figures and author metadata straight from a preprint’s “Author Area” into a partner journal’s editorial system. PNAS Nexus, the open-access companion journal published with Oxford University Press, is a listed B2J partner; the flagship PNAS journal instead accepts bioRxiv preprints under its standard “posting is permitted” policy, handled through ordinary manual submission. Nature and eLife each use a third and fourth mechanism again — this guide maps all of them.

    Direct submission, in the strict bioRxiv sense, means B2J: an automated transfer of files and metadata that removes the need to re-upload a manuscript at the receiving journal. That is a narrower, more specific claim than “the journal accepts preprints,” and conflating the two is the most common error in advice about preprint-to-journal workflows.

    Does PNAS accept direct submission from bioRxiv?

    Yes, but the route depends on which PNAS title is involved. PNAS’s Standard License Terms state that authors retain “the right to post the manuscript on preprint servers such as arXiv or bioRxiv,” and its editorial policies confirm that posting on preprint servers “is permitted and will not affect editorial consideration.” That is a preprint-tolerance policy, not a file-transfer mechanism.

    For an actual B2J connection — where bioRxiv pushes the manuscript and metadata into the journal’s submission system — the relevant partner on bioRxiv’s own list is PNAS Nexus, the fully open-access companion journal the National Academy of Sciences launched with Oxford University Press in 2022. Authors submitting to the flagship PNAS still upload independently and disclose the bioRxiv DOI in their cover letter or submission form.

    How does bioRxiv’s B2J transfer system actually work?

    bioRxiv describes B2J as a service that “can save authors time in submitting papers to journals or peer review services by transmitting their manuscript files and metadata directly from bioRxiv.” Authors do not re-enter author lists, funding statements or figure files; the receiving journal’s system pulls them from the preprint record.

    bioRxiv’s live Submission Guide lists 192 partner journals and peer-review services participating in B2J at the time of this analysis (mid-2026), spanning the PLOS family, EMBO’s three journals, Cell Press titles such as Cell Reports and Cell Genomics, the Royal Society’s journals, AAAS’s Science-family titles (Science Advances, Science Immunology, Science Signaling, Science Translational Medicine), Genetics Society journals, and independent review services including Review Commons.

    • Confirm the preprint version you want to transfer — revisions keep the same DOI, so specify the version-specific URL if it matters.
    • Select a reuse licence on bioRxiv (CC BY, CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC-ND or CC0) before transfer, since this travels with the metadata.
    • Check the receiving journal’s own preprint-disclosure requirement — B2J moves files, but editorial policy compliance remains the author’s responsibility.
    • Verify funder mandate compatibility (for example NIH Public Access or cOAlition S requirements) before relying on the preprint version alone for compliance.

    bioRxiv itself is operated by openRxiv, described on its own Submission Guide as “a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science communication” — a distinct entity from any single receiving journal, which is why B2J participation is a per-journal opt-in list rather than a universal feature.

    How does Nature handle bioRxiv preprints?

    Nature and most Nature-branded journals treat a bioRxiv posting as compatible with submission, not as prior publication, so authors can submit a manuscript that already exists as a bioRxiv preprint. Unlike PNAS Nexus, however, neither the flagship Nature journal nor its major sister titles appear on bioRxiv’s public B2J partner list, so there is no automated file transfer from bioRxiv into Nature’s own submission system as of this analysis.

    The practical route is the standard one: submit through the journal’s own online system and disclose the preprint DOI in the cover letter. Springer Nature separately runs “In Review,” a partnership with Research Square that posts a preprint alongside transparent, published peer-review reports for participating journals — a related but functionally different bridge from bioRxiv’s B2J, since it originates on the journal side rather than the preprint-server side.

    How does eLife’s preprint-review model differ?

    eLife’s relationship with bioRxiv is the tightest of the three, but it is not a simple file-transfer either. eLife announced its bioRxiv-integrated transfer option in 2017, letting authors “upload a preprint to bioRxiv first and then transfer their files for consideration by eLife.” In December 2020, eLife announced it would require all new submissions to be posted as preprints on bioRxiv, medRxiv or an equivalent server before review — a policy shift reported by Science/AAAS at the time.

    Since its 2023 “Publish, Review, Curate” model, eLife no longer issues accept/reject decisions after review. Every manuscript it reviews is published as a Reviewed Preprint — the bioRxiv (or medRxiv) posting itself, plus public peer reviews and an eLife Assessment summarising significance and evidence strength. The preprint version and the eLife editorial layer stay linked rather than being replaced by a separate “Version of Record.”

    Journal / publisher Preprint policy Mechanism from bioRxiv Notable detail
    PNAS (flagship) Posting permitted; not prior publication Manual submission; author discloses DOI Reviewers may see the preprint version directly
    PNAS Nexus Same NAS preprint stance Listed bioRxiv B2J partner Open-access companion journal, launched with OUP in 2022
    Nature (and most sister titles) Preprints not treated as prior publication Standard submission; not on bioRxiv’s B2J list Separate “In Review” service via Research Square for some titles
    eLife Preprint posting required since Dec 2020 Author-initiated transfer from bioRxiv Author Area (since 2017) Since 2023, all reviewed papers are published as bioRxiv-linked Reviewed Preprints

    Common questions on bioRxiv journal submission

    Does PNAS allow bioRxiv?

    Yes. PNAS’s Standard License Terms and editorial policies explicitly state that posting on preprint servers such as arXiv or bioRxiv is permitted and does not count as prior publication. Authors must disclose the preprint and its DOI during submission, and the flagship title is submitted manually rather than via bioRxiv’s automated B2J transfer.

    Who owns bioRxiv?

    bioRxiv is operated by openRxiv, which describes itself as “a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science communication.” It is independent of any single publisher, which is why individual journals — including flagship PNAS and Nature — must separately opt in to its B2J transfer list rather than automatically inheriting it.

    Is eLife a preprint?

    Not exactly. eLife is a journal whose reviewed output is published as a Reviewed Preprint — the underlying bioRxiv or medRxiv posting plus eLife’s public peer reviews and an eLife Assessment. Since its 2023 model change, eLife does not issue a separate accept/reject “Version of Record”; the linked preprint remains the article of record.

    How long does a bioRxiv submission take?

    bioRxiv’s own FAQ states manuscripts are screened and typically post within hours of submission, with full-text HTML and XML conversion following one to two days later. This screening checks for offensive or non-scientific content and biosecurity risk, not scientific validity — bioRxiv preprints are explicitly not peer-reviewed before posting.

    What this means for authors and research offices

    For corresponding authors, the practical takeaway is definitional precision: check whether a target journal is a bioRxiv B2J partner (automated transfer) or merely preprint-tolerant (manual submission plus disclosure) before assuming a “direct” route exists. The two are not interchangeable, and the difference determines whether re-uploading files is necessary.

    For research administrators and institutional research offices tracking author compliance across preprint and published versions, the distinction also affects funder-mandate reporting: a bioRxiv posting satisfies green open-access requirements under policies such as those referenced by cOAlition S signatories, independent of whether the receiving journal later uses B2J or a manual route. Institutions monitoring this pipeline should treat “preprint accepted” and “direct B2J transfer available” as two separate checklist items, not one.

    Journal-side preprint bridges will likely keep diverging rather than converging: bioRxiv’s B2J list continues to add peer-review services (such as Review Commons) alongside traditional journals, while eLife’s Reviewed Preprint model and Springer Nature’s In Review service represent journal-initiated alternatives built for transparency rather than upload convenience. Authors and research offices should expect to track policy pages per title rather than assume a single universal standard.

  • bioRxiv Alerts: Email, RSS or API Options

    bioRxiv alerts let researchers and developers track newly posted preprints in a chosen subject area without manually rechecking the site — the three core options are subject-category email alerts, per-category RSS/Atom feeds, and the public bioRxiv API, each suited to a different workflow. bioRxiv is the preprint server for biology operated by openRxiv, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing scientific communication, and it exposes the same underlying content through all three channels plus social feeds on Bluesky, Mastodon and X.

    This guide compares the four practical ways to follow new bioRxiv postings — email alerts, RSS/Atom feeds, the REST API, and social feeds — so you can pick the right combination for a literature-monitoring workflow, a lab dashboard, or an automated pipeline.

    What are bioRxiv’s alert options?

    bioRxiv is a preprint server for the biological sciences; a preprint is a complete scientific manuscript posted online before, or without, formal peer review. Because thousands of preprints are posted every week across dozens of subject categories, bioRxiv publishes the same feed of new content through four distinct channels rather than a single notification system.

    Each channel trades off timeliness, filtering precision and technical effort differently. Email alerts and RSS feeds are built for passive monitoring by individual researchers; the API is built for developers who need structured metadata inside another tool; social feeds suit anyone already working inside those platforms.

    How do bioRxiv email alerts work?

    Email alerts are the lowest-effort option for an individual researcher who wants a periodic digest. You sign up on the bioRxiv Alerts page, select one or more of bioRxiv’s roughly 30 subject categories — from Bioinformatics to Zoology — and bioRxiv emails you when matching preprints are posted.

    • Alerts can be scoped to a subject category, a keyword search, or a specific author.
    • You can add or remove subject-area alerts at any time from the same sign-up page, without deleting your account.
    • No bioRxiv account or login is required simply to receive category alerts — the sign-up form only asks for an email address.

    This makes email alerts the right default for anyone who wants new preprints in their inbox without building or maintaining anything.

    How do bioRxiv RSS feeds work?

    bioRxiv’s Alerts/RSS page publishes an Atom 1.0 feed for each subject category, plus a combined feed across all categories. Each feed returns only the most recent 30 posts for that category — a hard limit set by bioRxiv, not a filter you can extend — so an RSS reader that checks infrequently can silently miss older items once more than 30 new preprints accumulate.

    Feeds can be combined by chaining subject categories with a plus sign in the URL, and multi-word category names use an underscore in place of a space. For example, a feed combining Genomics and Bioinformatics takes the form:

    • http://connect.biorxiv.org/biorxiv_xml.php?subject=genomics+bioinformatics

    This lets a single feed reader subscription cover several adjacent subject areas — useful for interdisciplinary groups — without needing separate subscriptions per category.

    What can the bioRxiv API do that alerts and RSS can’t?

    The bioRxiv API is a pull-based REST interface returning structured JSON metadata — DOI, title, authors, category, posting date and abstract — for preprints on bioRxiv and medRxiv. Unlike email alerts or RSS, it has no built-in subject-category filter parameter and no push/webhook mechanism: a developer must query by date interval or DOI and filter the returned category field client-side.

    That distinction matters for anyone building automated tooling:

    • The API suits scheduled polling jobs, institutional repository harvesters, and research-tool dashboards that need structured metadata, not just a headline and link.
    • RSS and email alerts remain the simpler choice for a single researcher who only wants to read new titles as they appear.
    • Because the API is pull-based, any “alert” built on top of it requires you to run your own polling schedule and de-duplication logic.

    Detailed field definitions and endpoint syntax are published in bioRxiv’s own API documentation, which developers should consult directly before building a production integration.

    Should you follow bioRxiv on Bluesky, Mastodon or X?

    bioRxiv also mirrors new postings to social platforms, and this is where the biggest recent change sits — one that generic alert guides tend to miss. Beyond the long-standing X/Twitter account (@biorxivpreprint, over 140,000 followers, plus a dedicated account per subject category), bioRxiv now runs an equivalent set of per-category streams on Bluesky (e.g. biorxiv-bioinfo.bsky.social) and Mastodon (e.g. biorxiv_bioinfo on biologists.social).

    This matters because X restricted free API access in 2023, which reduced the reliability of X-based bots and dashboards that many labs had built to watch subject feeds. Bluesky and Mastodon’s open, API-friendly protocols make them a more dependable base for anyone building a custom preprint-monitoring bot today, rather than a nice-to-have alternative.

    Which option should you choose?

    The right channel depends on how much filtering precision you need and how much technical effort you are willing to invest.

    Channel Best for Filtering Setup effort Key limitation
    Email alerts Individual researchers wanting a digest Subject, keyword, author None (email only) No login needed, but digest cadence isn’t real time
    RSS/Atom feed Feed-reader users, interdisciplinary groups Subject category, combinable Low (add feed URL) Capped at the most recent 30 posts per category
    REST API Developers, institutional tools, dashboards None built-in; filter client-side High (build a polling job) Pull-based only, no webhook/push
    Bluesky/Mastodon/X Social monitoring, bot-building Per subject-category account Low–Medium X reach reduced since 2023 API restrictions

    For most individual researchers, subject-category email alerts remain the simplest reliable option. Developers building institutional or lab-wide monitoring tools should combine the API for structured metadata with RSS as a lightweight fallback.

    Common questions about bioRxiv alerts

    Why are my bioRxiv email alerts not working?

    Missed bioRxiv alerts are usually caused by an out-of-date subject-category selection, an alert email landing in a spam or promotions folder, or an expired confirmation link. Re-visiting the bioRxiv Alerts page and re-confirming your chosen categories resolves most cases.

    Do I need a bioRxiv account or login to set up alerts?

    No account or login is required for basic email alerts — only an email address. A bioRxiv account is only needed for actions like submitting a manuscript, posting a comment, or managing an author profile, not for receiving subject-area notifications.

    Does bioRxiv have a public API for developers?

    Yes. bioRxiv publishes a public REST API returning JSON metadata — including DOI, title, category and abstract — for content on bioRxiv and medRxiv. It is pull-based, so developers must schedule their own queries rather than receive push notifications.

    Should I track bioRxiv or arXiv for my subject area?

    Choose based on discipline, not preference: bioRxiv covers biology-specific subject categories, while arXiv covers physics, mathematics, computer science and quantitative biology. Researchers working across both fields — for example in computational biology — often need alerts from both servers rather than treating them as interchangeable.

    What this means for research-monitoring workflows

    Preprint volume keeps growing across biology subject categories, and no single channel covers every use case. A researcher who only needs a daily digest is well served by email alerts; a developer building a literature-surveillance tool for an institution needs the API’s structured metadata and should plan for its pull-based, polling architecture from the outset. Teams that previously relied solely on X-based bots should treat the 2023 API restrictions as a prompt to add Bluesky or Mastodon, or the official RSS feed, as a more durable foundation.

    Research administrators supporting open-scholarship workflows can pair these tracking methods with broader terminology in the CASRAI Dictionary when documenting how preprints fit into an institution’s research-administration processes.

  • Scholarly Communication Librarian: Remit & KPIs

    A scholarly communication librarian is the institutional specialist who manages an organisation’s research-dissemination lifecycle — open access compliance, institutional repository content, author rights and copyright advice, and research-impact metrics — usually from within, or alongside, the university library. For research administrators scoping this function for the first time, the practical questions are rarely about the job title itself but about remit, reporting line, and how success is measured.

    Scholarly communication is defined by the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) as “the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated to the scholarly community, and preserved for future use” — a definition first published in ACRL’s 2003 white paper Principles and Strategies for the Reform of Scholarly Communication and still the field’s standard reference point.

    What does a scholarly communication librarian actually do?

    A scholarly communication librarian coordinates four practical work streams: institutional repository management, publishing services, copyright and author-rights advice, and research-impact assessment. The NASIG Core Competencies for Scholarly Communication Librarians, adopted in 2017 and revised in 2020, describes the role’s duties as “broad and amorphous” by design — a single post-holder rarely owns every strand, and responsibility is often diffused across a wider library team.

    In day-to-day terms, that means: encouraging and processing repository deposits, checking publisher self-archiving and embargo terms, advising authors on publication agreements and Creative Commons licensing, running open access and OER outreach (often timed around International Open Access Week), and helping researchers interpret citation and altmetrics data for tenure, promotion, or funder reporting.

    What is the remit of an institutional office of scholarly communication?

    An office of scholarly communication is the organisational unit — typically nested inside the university library — that holds institution-wide responsibility for these duties rather than leaving them to individual subject librarians. Its remit generally spans five areas: institutional repository management, publishing services, copyright services, research data management, and assessment/impact metrics, as set out in the joint COAR/OCLC Librarians’ Competencies Profile for Scholarly Communication and Open Access (Calarco et al., 2016).

    Institutions vary in how much of this remit sits in one office versus being distributed. The University of Edinburgh’s Scholarly Communications Team is a working example of a centralised model: it “supports University staff and students before, during and after publication of their research,” managing policy compliance, the institutional repository (ERA), and the research information system (PURE) as a single service point.

    Who does a scholarly communication librarian report to?

    There is no single reporting model across the sector. Four structures recur most often in job postings and organisational charts, and the choice usually reflects whether an institution treats scholarly communication as a collections function, a research-support function, or a technology function.

    Reporting model Typical manager Institutional emphasis
    Collections-integrated Associate University Librarian for Collections & Scholarly Communication Ties open access and repository work to acquisitions and collection strategy
    Research-services-integrated Associate University Librarian for Research Services / Academic Success Positions the role alongside research support, data management, grants
    Digital-scholarship unit Head of Digital Scholarship Groups scholarly communication with data curation and digital publishing
    Distributed/diffuse No single line manager; shared across subject librarians Spreads responsibility rather than centralising it in one post

    For research administrators building a business case, the reporting line matters because it determines which budget line funds the post, which committee sets its priorities, and whether the role has authority to negotiate publisher agreements directly or must route decisions through acquisitions or general counsel.

    What competencies and skills does the role require?

    NASIG’s framework groups core competencies into four cross-cutting themes — background knowledge, technical skills, outreach and instruction, and team building — layered under whichever of the five areas of emphasis a given post prioritises. Practical requirements include:

    • Working knowledge of copyright law, fair use/fair dealing, and publisher self-archiving policies
    • Familiarity with repository platforms (e.g. DSpace, Digital Commons, Fedora) and identifier systems such as CrossRef and DataCite DOIs and ORCID
    • Ability to interpret bibliometrics and altmetrics without overstating what a single indicator (such as the Journal Impact Factor) can support
    • Project management skills to run cross-departmental initiatives with subject librarians, university counsel, and IT
    • Comfort advising on funder open access mandates and institutional policy drafting

    Author-identifier and contribution-tracking literacy increasingly falls within this remit too. CASRAI originated the CRediT contributor role taxonomy in 2014; the standard is now stewarded by NISO as ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022, and scholarly communication librarians are frequently the staff who explain CRediT tagging to authors submitting to journals that require it.

    What KPIs do institutions use to measure the role?

    Because the remit spans compliance, service, and advocacy work, institutions typically track a mixed basket of KPIs rather than a single output metric:

    • Compliance KPIs: proportion of eligible outputs deposited in the repository within funder-mandated windows (for UK institutions, this maps to REF open access requirements and UKRI’s policy, in force for journal articles and conference proceedings since 1 April 2022 and extended to monographs, book chapters and edited collections from 1 January 2024)
    • Service KPIs: turnaround time on copyright and publishing-agreement queries; number of consultations delivered
    • Adoption KPIs: repository deposit volume and growth; OER adoption rate and associated student cost savings
    • Outreach KPIs: workshop and training attendance; policy and guidance page usage
    • Impact-reporting KPIs: volume of impact-metrics consultations supporting tenure, promotion, or funder reporting cycles

    Compliance and adoption KPIs are the ones most directly reportable to institutional leadership and funders, since they map to external mandates rather than internal service-level judgement calls.

    Answer-first Q&A

    What does a scholarly communication librarian do?

    A scholarly communication librarian manages an institution’s research dissemination lifecycle: encouraging and processing institutional repository deposits, advising authors on copyright and publisher agreements, supporting open access compliance, and helping researchers interpret citation and altmetrics data for promotion or funder reporting purposes.

    Who does a scholarly communication librarian report to?

    Reporting lines vary by institution. Most commonly the role sits under an Associate University Librarian for Collections, Research Services, or Digital Scholarship, though some institutions run a distributed model where duties are shared across subject librarians rather than assigned to one dedicated post.

    Not exactly. Copyright services are one of five recognised areas of emphasis within scholarly communication work, alongside repository management, publishing services, data management, and impact assessment — a copyright librarian is typically a specialist within, not synonymous with, the broader role.

    What skills does a scholarly communication librarian need?

    Core requirements include copyright and licensing knowledge, familiarity with repository platforms and identifier systems (DOIs, ORCID), bibliometrics literacy, project management ability, and comfort translating funder open access mandates into institutional policy and researcher-facing guidance.

    Implications for research administrators building the team

    Institutions standing up this function from scratch should decide the reporting line before writing the job description, since the five areas of emphasis rarely fit into one full-time post. A common pattern is to hire a generalist scholarly communication librarian first, then add copyright or data-management specialists as the repository, compliance, and outreach workload grows. Aligning KPIs to funder mandates — UKRI open access policy, REF-linked deposit windows — gives the post measurable, leadership-visible outcomes from year one rather than only qualitative service-desk activity.

    As funder identifier requirements expand and CRediT-style contribution tagging becomes more common in submission systems, institutions that fold author-identifier and contribution-metadata literacy into this role early will spend less time retrofitting compliance processes later. Research administrators building or reviewing this function should treat it as a standing institutional capability, not a project team, and revisit its remit and KPIs whenever a major funder policy changes.

  • bioRxiv or medRxiv? Choosing the Right Server for Clinical vs Basic Research

    bioRxiv or medRxiv? Choose bioRxiv for basic, non-clinical life-sciences research such as genetics, microbiology or neuroscience, and medRxiv for clinical, epidemiological or public-health research that could influence patient care. The two preprint servers do not overlap: posting the same manuscript to both is prohibited and can result in withdrawal.

    A preprint server is an open-access repository where researchers post a scientific manuscript publicly before it has completed formal peer review. bioRxiv and medRxiv are the two sibling servers operated by openRxiv for the life and health sciences respectively, and the correct choice between them depends on subject scope, not on which sounds more prestigious.

    On this page:

    What is the difference between bioRxiv and medRxiv?

    bioRxiv launched in 2013 at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) as a preprint server for basic biology; medRxiv followed in 2019 as a dedicated server for clinical and health-sciences manuscripts. In March 2025, CSHL transferred governance of both platforms to openRxiv, a newly formed independent nonprofit, marking the most significant structural change since bioRxiv’s founding.

    Neither server is a journal. medRxiv is not a journal — it is a repository, and nothing posted there has been peer reviewed or certified. Both platforms carry explicit caution notices stating that preprints should not guide clinical practice, inform health-related behaviour, or be reported as established findings.

    The practical distinction authors need is scope, not scale: bioRxiv covers fundamental biological research with new data, while medRxiv is reserved for work that could plausibly influence a clinical decision, a public-health response, or patient behaviour.

    Where should clinical trials and health research go?

    Any manuscript reporting a clinical trial, an epidemiological study, or research with direct implications for diagnosis, treatment or public-health policy belongs on medRxiv. bioRxiv’s own submission guidance is explicit that new clinical trial reports and most epidemiology submissions must now go to medRxiv rather than bioRxiv.

    medRxiv applies stricter screening than bioRxiv precisely because misinterpreted clinical claims carry public-harm risk. One detail authors frequently miss: medRxiv does not accept case reports or case series, so single-patient or small-series clinical write-ups need a different outlet even when the subject matter is unambiguously medical.

    • Randomised controlled trials and other interventional studies
    • Epidemiological and public-health surveillance research
    • Studies involving patient-level clinical or health-behaviour data
    • Infectious disease, oncology, cardiovascular medicine and psychiatry manuscripts

    Where should microbiology, neuroscience and basic biology go?

    bioRxiv is the correct venue when the research advances fundamental biological understanding without a direct clinical application. Its subject categories include microbiology, neuroscience, genetics, immunology, cell biology and bioinformatics, among others, and submissions are screened by volunteer bioRxiv Affiliates chiefly for scope, plagiarism and public-harm potential.

    A microbiology paper characterising a novel bacteriophage, or a neuroscience paper mapping neural circuitry in a model organism, sits comfortably on bioRxiv provided it does not extend into patient data or treatment recommendations. The moment a microbiology study becomes an infectious-disease outbreak analysis, or a neuroscience study becomes a neurology or psychiatry treatment study, the correct server changes to medRxiv.

    How do you decide when a study sits on the border?

    Most submission confusion happens in a handful of predictable grey zones where a basic-science category on bioRxiv has a clinical counterpart on medRxiv. openRxiv’s own subject-category lists make the pairing explicit, and mapping them side by side is the fastest way to resolve a borderline decision.

    bioRxiv category (basic science) medRxiv category (clinical counterpart) Decision rule
    Genetics / Genomics Genetic and Genomic Medicine Patient-directed diagnosis or therapy → medRxiv
    Neuroscience Neurology / Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology Patient treatment or behaviour outcomes → medRxiv
    Microbiology Infectious Diseases Outbreak, surveillance or patient-cohort data → medRxiv
    Pharmacology and Toxicology Pharmacology and Therapeutics Human dosing, trial or therapeutic outcome data → medRxiv

    As a working test: if the manuscript’s conclusion could reasonably change what a clinician does at the bedside, or what a public-health body recommends, it belongs on medRxiv regardless of how “basic” the underlying technique feels. If it reports mechanism, model-organism data or method development with no direct patient or population-health claim, bioRxiv is the right home.

    Under the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ recommendations, posting to a recognised preprint server does not count as prior or duplicate publication and does not preclude subsequent journal submission — but authors should still confirm the target journal’s own preprint policy before posting either version.

    Questions authors ask

    Is bioRxiv reputable?

    Yes. bioRxiv is a well-established, widely used life-sciences preprint server operated by openRxiv, screened by volunteer affiliates for plagiarism, scope and biosafety concerns. It is not peer reviewed, but it is recognised across academic biology as a legitimate venue for early-stage research dissemination.

    Is medRxiv trustworthy?

    medRxiv applies a stricter, additional screening layer beyond bioRxiv’s because of the public-harm risk in clinical and health content. Every posted manuscript carries a prominent caution notice stating it has not been certified by peer review and should not guide clinical practice, making its scope and limitations transparent to readers.

    What is the difference between bioRxiv and medRxiv?

    bioRxiv covers basic, non-clinical life sciences; medRxiv is reserved for clinical, epidemiological and health-sciences research with potential patient or public-health impact. Screening intensity, disclaimer wording and accepted article types differ accordingly, and a single manuscript cannot be posted to both servers simultaneously.

    What are the alternatives to bioRxiv?

    Depending on field, authors also use arXiv for quantitative and computational biology work, Research Square or journal-integrated “In Review” services, and discipline-specific repositories such as ChemRxiv. None of these substitute for medRxiv when a manuscript is clinically actionable.

    What this means for authors and institutions

    For individual authors, the server choice is a compliance decision, not a branding one: submitting a clinical manuscript to the wrong server risks a request to withdraw and resubmit, delaying the timestamp priority a preprint is meant to secure. Research administrators tracking institutional preprint activity — an increasingly routine part of research administration workflows — should build the bioRxiv/medRxiv scope test into pre-submission checklists rather than leaving it to individual author judgement.

    For institutions and publishers, the March 2025 move to independent openRxiv governance is worth tracking: it signals that preprint infrastructure for biology and medicine is now managed as permanent scholarly-communication infrastructure rather than a single laboratory’s side project, with implications for long-term archival stability and policy planning. Definitions of related terms, including preprint, postprint and version of record, are maintained in the CASRAI Research Administration Dictionary.

    The practical rule holds regardless of field: match the manuscript’s real-world consequence, not its disciplinary label, to the server’s scope, and treat the bioRxiv/medRxiv boundary as a public-harm question rather than a prestige one.

  • Preprint Servers List by Discipline: 2026 Guide

    The right preprint server depends entirely on discipline: bioRxiv and medRxiv serve biomedicine, arXiv still dominates physics, mathematics and computer science, TechRxiv and engrXiv cover engineering, PsyArXiv leads psychology, and Preprints.org is one of the few platforms that formally accepts review articles alongside original research. This preprint servers list compares scope, governance, screening rules and 2026 policy changes across each field, so researchers and research offices can match a manuscript to the right platform rather than defaulting to the best-known name.

    A preprint server is an online repository where researchers deposit a complete but not-yet-peer-reviewed manuscript so it becomes citable and publicly readable before formal journal publication. Coverage, screening rigour and accepted article types vary sharply by field, which is why a single “best preprint server” answer is misleading.

    What is a preprint server, and why does discipline matter?

    A preprint server is a repository that posts a complete scholarly manuscript before it has undergone formal peer review, giving it a timestamp, a DOI and open readability. Screening is typically limited to checking that a submission is genuinely scholarly, complete and does not pose a public-health or safety risk — it is not equivalent to peer review.

    Disciplines differ in what they will screen for and what article types they will accept. A biology preprint about a novel protein structure and a psychology preprint reporting a null replication result face entirely different moderation standards, which is why choosing the correct preprint server list entry for your field matters more than choosing the largest or most famous platform.

    Which preprint server should biomedical and clinical researchers use?

    Biomedicine is served by two related but distinct platforms, both operated by openRxiv, the nonprofit spun out of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. bioRxiv covers basic life-sciences research, while medRxiv — described on its own site as “the preprint server for Health Sciences” — is reserved for clinical, epidemiological and public-health manuscripts and applies stricter screening because its content can influence clinical practice.

    • A manuscript cannot be posted to both bioRxiv and medRxiv simultaneously.
    • medRxiv states plainly in its FAQ that “there is no fee to submit manuscripts.”
    • medRxiv screening includes clinicians who check for content that could mislead patients or clinical decision-making.

    Which preprint server leads for physics, mathematics and computer science?

    arXiv, founded in 1991 and hosting more than a million articles, remains the dominant server for physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, statistics and quantitative finance. Its moderation relies on volunteer subject-area moderators rather than paid editorial staff.

    Two 2026 developments matter for anyone comparing arXiv to newer platforms. First, arXiv formally declared operational independence from Cornell University in March 2026, a governance shift reported by Science that separates its stewardship from a single host institution. Second, arXiv tightened its new-author policy: as of January 2026, first-time submitters in all categories need either an institutional email address plus a prior publication record on arXiv, or a personal endorsement from an established arXiv author — and in computer science categories specifically, review articles and position papers must already be accepted by a recognised journal or conference before they can be posted.

    Which preprint servers cover engineering and psychology?

    Engineering does not have a single dominant server in the way physics or biology do. TechRxiv, backed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and engrXiv, supported by the Center for Open Science, both accept a broad range of engineering and technology manuscripts, alongside arXiv’s own electrical-engineering and systems-science categories.

    PsyArXiv, hosted on the Open Science Framework and managed by the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science, is the closest thing psychology has to a discipline-wide default. It moderates submissions for scholarly relevance and, in 2026, moved to stricter verification of authors’ publication records for certain submission types, alongside its existing encouragement of preregistration and data-availability statements.

    Server Primary discipline Governing body Accepts review articles Notable 2026 development
    bioRxiv Biology / life sciences openRxiv (nonprofit) Not as a standalone article type —
    medRxiv Medicine / health sciences openRxiv (nonprofit) No No submission fee (confirmed in FAQ)
    arXiv Physics, maths, CS, stats Independent nonprofit (formerly Cornell-hosted) Restricted; CS reviews need prior journal/conference acceptance Declared independence from Cornell, March 2026
    TechRxiv Engineering & technology IEEE Yes —
    engrXiv Engineering sciences Center for Open Science Yes —
    PsyArXiv Psychology Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science / OSF Yes Stricter author-verification moderation, 2026
    Preprints.org Multidisciplinary MDPI Yes — explicit “Review” article type Passed 124,000+ hosted preprints

    Which preprint server accepts review articles — Preprints.org vs arXiv?

    This is where discipline-agnostic platforms diverge sharply from field-specific ones. Preprints.org, governed by MDPI and hosting over 124,000 preprints, explicitly lists “Review” as one of its recognised submission types alongside original articles, communications and data descriptors — making it one of the more accommodating multidisciplinary choices for authors of literature reviews and systematic reviews.

    arXiv, by contrast, treats review and position papers as a special case rather than a default article type: in its computer science categories, such papers must already have been accepted by a recognised journal or conference before arXiv will host them. bioRxiv similarly does not treat “review article” as a standard submission category — its FAQ describes comment-based peer discussion, not narrative reviews, as the mechanism for post-publication critique.

    For authors specifically searching for where to deposit a review manuscript, this is a genuine and under-reported distinction: Preprints.org and general-purpose repositories such as SSRN or Research Square are structurally more open to review articles than the flagship subject-specific servers.

    Frequently asked questions

    What is a preprint server?

    A preprint server is an online repository where researchers deposit a complete, unpublished manuscript before peer review, so it receives a timestamp, a citable DOI and open access. It performs basic scholarly and safety screening but does not certify the findings the way peer review does.

    Is medRxiv free to use?

    Yes. medRxiv’s own FAQ states there is no fee to submit manuscripts. Authors do not pay to post, and readers access preprints without a paywall, consistent with its role as an open, nonprofit health-sciences repository operated by openRxiv.

    Does bioRxiv accept review papers?

    Not as a standard submission type. bioRxiv is built around original research reports, and its FAQ describes structured comments — not narrative or systematic review articles — as its mechanism for post-posting critique. Authors of review manuscripts typically use Preprints.org or a discipline-general server instead.

    What are the disadvantages of preprints?

    Preprints have not been peer-reviewed, so findings can be incomplete, later revised, or misreported by media before formal validation. Negative public comments on a preprint may also influence subsequent peer review, and some journals still restrict submissions that overlap heavily with an already-public preprint.

    Implications for research administrators and institutions

    Research offices advising authors on open-access compliance need a discipline-aware view, not a single institutional default. A biomedical clinical trial preprint belongs on medRxiv given its clinician screening; a systematic review destined for a multidisciplinary audience is far more likely to be accepted on Preprints.org than on arXiv or bioRxiv. Institutions building preprint guidance pages should map manuscript type and discipline to platform before recommending “post it on arXiv” as a blanket instruction.

    Funders and publishers referencing preprint policy should also note governance changes such as arXiv’s 2026 separation from Cornell, since institutional affiliation and stewardship arrangements can affect long-term archiving guarantees that research administrators rely on when advising on data-management and preservation plans.

    Conclusion: choosing by discipline, not by brand

    There is no universal “best” preprint server. bioRxiv and medRxiv fit biomedicine, arXiv still defines physics, mathematics and computer science despite tightened 2026 submission rules, TechRxiv and engrXiv split the engineering space, PsyArXiv anchors psychology, and Preprints.org stands out as the multidisciplinary option most open to review articles. Authors and research offices get the best outcome by treating this preprint servers list as a field-by-field decision, not a single default choice.

  • bioRxiv Template: LaTeX & Word Formatting Guide

    A bioRxiv manuscript template is a formatting scaffold — in LaTeX or Word — that arranges title page, abstract, figures, and references to match bioRxiv’s posting system, but bioRxiv itself mandates no single template. Authors may submit a plain PDF, a Word file with separate figures, or a LaTeX-derived PDF built from one of several community templates. This guide walks through each formatting field so a manuscript is ready for upload on the first attempt, rather than repeating the general submission-guidelines overview already covered elsewhere on this site.

    bioRxiv is the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, that posts unpublished research manuscripts after a basic screening step rather than peer review.

    Does bioRxiv Require a Specific Manuscript Template?

    No. bioRxiv’s own guidance states that it “does not require a particular article format/style,” and submission formats can therefore vary considerably between manuscripts. The bioRxiv Submission Guide describes the simplest route as uploading a single PDF containing the full text, figures, and tables.

    This absence of a mandatory template is precisely why community-built templates exist: authors want the discipline of a fixed structure — title page order, figure placement, reference formatting — even though bioRxiv will accept a manuscript without one. The trade-off is that a template also signals to co-authors and affiliates conducting screening that the manuscript is complete and properly ordered.

    Which LaTeX Template Should You Use for bioRxiv?

    For LaTeX users, Overleaf hosts several bioRxiv-tagged templates that compile directly to a submission-ready PDF. Two are widely used within the biology preprint community, and both descend from the same lineage: the HenriquesLab bioRxiv template, itself a modification of the PNAS journal template.

    The quantixed/manuscript-templates repository extends this further: a single manuscript source can generate either a typeset preprint layout (\documentclass[twocolumn]{bioRxiv}) or a line-numbered journal-submission layout (\documentclass[submit]{bioRxiv}) by commenting one line in a merge file, avoiding two parallel documents. It also adds native \orcidlink support so ORCID iDs render correctly on the title page.

    Template Format Platform Notable field-level feature
    arXiv/bioRxiv template LaTeX Overleaf General-purpose preprint layout with figure embedding
    HenriquesLab bioRxiv template LaTeX Overleaf PNAS-derived styling built specifically for bioRxiv
    quantixed/manuscript-templates LaTeX GitHub / Overleaf Switchable preprint vs. journal-submission layout; ORCID support
    chrelli/bioRxiv-word-template Word (.docx) GitHub Styled headings and figure captions for non-LaTeX authors
    finkelsteinlab/BioRxiv-Template Word (.docx) GitHub Reader-friendly layout aimed at readability over journal mimicry

    Whichever LaTeX template is used, the .tex source must still be compiled and converted to PDF before upload — bioRxiv’s submission system does not accept raw .tex files.

    Formatting a bioRxiv Manuscript in Word

    Authors who do not use LaTeX can format directly in Microsoft Word using a template such as the chrelli or finkelsteinlab bioRxiv templates on GitHub, both designed to visually approximate a typeset preprint while remaining fully editable. The practical field order to follow is:

    • Title page: full title, author list, institutional affiliations, ORCID iDs, and the corresponding author’s contact details.
    • Abstract: a single unstructured paragraph summarising rationale, method, and findings.
    • Main text: Introduction, Results, Discussion, and Methods — bioRxiv does not enforce a fixed section order, so discipline-specific conventions (e.g. Methods-first for some biology sub-fields) are acceptable.
    • Figures and tables: either embedded in-line at first citation or supplied as separate files.
    • Author Contributions: a statement of who did what, increasingly expressed using the CRediT contributor role taxonomy.
    • Competing interests and funding: brief declarations, matching journal norms.
    • References and, where applicable, a separate Supplementary Information reference list.

    On the Author Contributions field: CASRAI originated the CRediT contributor role taxonomy in 2014. The standard is now stewarded by NISO as ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022, and mapping each author to a defined CRediT role gives the statement a machine-readable structure that a free-text sentence lacks.

    What File Formats and Figure Rules Does bioRxiv Require?

    bioRxiv’s accepted formats are narrower than they first appear, and mismatched file types are a common cause of upload failure.

    • Main text: PDF, Microsoft Word, or WordPerfect.
    • Figures and tables submitted separately: GIF, TIFF, EPS, or JPEG.
    • Supplemental files: posted largely as-is, so a wider range of file types is tolerated.
    • LaTeX source: must be compiled to PDF before submission; the system does not ingest .tex directly.

    bioRxiv also offers a print-friendly, in-line-figure PDF generated automatically from the full-text HTML of a posted preprint — a feature introduced in February 2022 specifically so readers are not limited to the author’s originally submitted figure placement.

    Article type matters as much as file type. bioRxiv categorises submissions as New Results, Confirmatory Results, or Contradictory Results; narrative reviews, commentaries, opinion pieces, and step-by-step protocols are not considered appropriate for the server. New manuscripts reporting clinical trial results must go to medRxiv instead of bioRxiv.

    How Does bioRxiv Assign a DOI, and How Should a Preprint Be Cited?

    Every bioRxiv preprint receives a Crossref DOI under the 10.1101/ prefix as soon as it clears screening and posts — no separate application step is required from the author. This DOI remains stable through subsequent revised versions of the same preprint.

    For citation, most style guides treat a bioRxiv preprint as a standard journal-style reference carrying a DOI instead of (or alongside) volume and page numbers; Wikipedia maintains a dedicated {{Biorxiv}} citation template for exactly this purpose. Once a preprint is later published in a peer-reviewed journal, citing conventions typically shift to the journal DOI, with the preprint DOI retained as a historical record of priority.

    Frequently Asked Questions About bioRxiv Submission

    Can anyone submit to bioRxiv?

    Yes. Any author may deposit a manuscript on bioRxiv provided it covers a relevant scientific field, is unpublished at the time of submission, and all co-authors have consented to its deposition. Authors must first register on the submission site before uploading a manuscript.

    How much does it cost to submit to bioRxiv?

    There is no fee to submit an article to bioRxiv. This distinguishes it from many journals’ article-processing charges and from some other preprint servers that levy optional support fees, making template correctness — not payment — the main barrier to a smooth first submission.

    Can you put a paper on bioRxiv after submitting it to a journal?

    Yes. A manuscript can be posted to bioRxiv at any point before a journal formally publishes it, and new revised versions can be posted at any time up to journal publication or assignment of a journal DOI, provided the target journal’s own preprint policy permits it.

    When should you submit to bioRxiv?

    There is no fixed submission window: a manuscript can go to bioRxiv at any stage before journal publication, including alongside or ahead of journal submission. Once a paper has already been formally published by a journal, it can no longer be submitted to bioRxiv.

    What This Means for Authors and Institutions

    The lack of a mandatory bioRxiv template shifts formatting risk onto the author rather than the platform. Choosing a maintained LaTeX template, such as one built to switch between preprint and journal-submission layouts, or a Word template with pre-styled headings, reduces reformatting work twice: once for the preprint and again when the manuscript is later reshaped for a target journal.

    For research offices and library preprint-support teams, standardising on one or two vetted templates — and requiring CRediT-tagged Author Contributions statements — creates consistency across a department’s preprint output without waiting for bioRxiv itself to impose a house style. As preprints increasingly carry citable, versioned DOIs from the moment of posting, formatting discipline at submission time has become part of an institution’s research-integrity record, not just a cosmetic step.