CASRAI Dictionary

Tag: preprint server biorxiv

  • BioRxiv Preprint Server: NIH, Wellcome and Gates Compared

    Funder preprint requirements diverge sharply in 2026: the Gates Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) now mandate deposit on a recognised server such as the preprint server bioRxiv or its sister site medRxiv, the NIH indexes eligible preprints in PubMed Central without treating them as compliance, and Wellcome requires them only in defined public-health-emergency scenarios. Research administrators tracking multi-funder portfolios need a single reference for which rule applies where.

    A preprint server is an open-access repository — such as bioRxiv for biology or medRxiv for health sciences — where researchers post a complete but not-yet-peer-reviewed manuscript for immediate public access. Both platforms are operated by openRxiv, a nonprofit formed in 2025 specifically to run bioRxiv and medRxiv independently of their founding host institution.

    What Is a Preprint Server Like bioRxiv?

    A preprint server is a repository for manuscripts that have not yet completed formal peer review. bioRxiv, co-founded by John Inglis and Richard Sever, launched in November 2013 as a life-sciences equivalent to arXiv. Its companion site, medRxiv, covers health and clinical research and applies additional pre-posting screening because of the sensitivity of medical findings.

    Submissions to both platforms undergo basic scrutiny — plagiarism screening, an appropriateness check, and a safeguarding review — but not peer review itself. Roughly two-thirds of bioRxiv preprints are later published in a peer-reviewed journal, and by early 2026 bioRxiv was recording around four million article downloads a month, according to a Nature analysis of the server’s first 13 years.

    Which Funders Require Preprinting in 2026?

    Funder policy on preprints splits into three tiers: outright mandates, conditional requirements, and pure encouragement. The table below summarises the position of four major research funders as of 2026.

    Funder Preprint requirement Effective date Compliance role
    Gates Foundation Mandatory — deposit before or at journal submission, CC BY licence 1 January 2025 Core requirement of the Open Access Policy
    HHMI Mandatory for HHMI investigators, scholars and Janelia scientists 1 January 2026 Preprint required before journal submission
    Wellcome Trust Required only for research with significant public health implications; encouraged otherwise Ongoing Accepted as a fallback open access route if a fully OA journal or Europe PMC deposit is unavailable
    NIH Not required Preprint Pilot ongoing Discoverability only — does not satisfy the NIH Public Access Policy

    Two funders — Gates and HHMI — now treat preprinting as a compulsory step in the research lifecycle. NIH and Wellcome instead fold preprints into a wider menu of open access routes, which is the detail most other coverage of this topic omits.

    How Does the NIH Preprint Pilot Treat bioRxiv Deposits?

    The NIH Preprint Pilot makes eligible NIH-funded preprints — including bioRxiv and medRxiv deposits — discoverable in PubMed Central and PubMed, tagged clearly as preprints rather than peer-reviewed literature. This is a discoverability mechanism, not a compliance mechanism.

    Posting a preprint does not fulfil the NIH Public Access Policy. Grantees must still deposit the final, accepted peer-reviewed manuscript in PMC. NIH does, however, permit researchers to cite preprints in grant applications and progress reports, which gives early findings some formal standing without changing the underlying compliance obligation.

    Does Wellcome Require or Just Encourage Preprints?

    Wellcome strongly encourages preprinting across its funded portfolio and requires it specifically where a disease outbreak or comparable public health emergency makes rapid sharing a priority. Outside those defined scenarios, preprinting is not compulsory.

    Wellcome’s primary open access compliance routes are publication in a fully open access journal or deposit of the author’s accepted manuscript in Europe PMC. A CC BY-licensed preprint is accepted as a valid compliance route only if neither of those primary routes is available — a fallback position, not a default requirement.

    What Changed When bioRxiv and medRxiv Became openRxiv?

    bioRxiv and medRxiv were hosted by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) from launch until 11 March 2025, when ownership transferred to openRxiv, a newly formed nonprofit dedicated solely to running the two preprint servers. This is a provenance detail funder-policy roundups routinely miss, and it matters for research administrators: openRxiv, not CSHL, is now the governing body whose terms of use and licensing options apply to deposits made under Gates, HHMI, Wellcome and NIH-linked research.

    The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has funded platform development on both sites since 2017, part of a broader pattern of philanthropic infrastructure investment that runs parallel to — and distinct from — the funder mandates covered above.

    Common Questions About bioRxiv and Preprint Servers

    Is bioRxiv a preprint server?

    Yes. bioRxiv is an open-access preprint server for the biological sciences, hosting complete but not-yet-peer-reviewed manuscripts. It does not conduct peer review itself, though submissions undergo basic screening and reviews from journals or platforms such as Review Commons may be posted alongside preprints.

    Is it free to publish on bioRxiv?

    Yes. Authors register without charge and there is no fee to deposit a manuscript on bioRxiv or medRxiv. This zero-cost deposit model is one reason funders increasingly treat preprinting as a low-friction first step toward full open access compliance.

    What is a preprint server?

    A preprint server is an online repository where researchers post manuscripts before or during formal peer review, giving the wider research community immediate access to findings. bioRxiv and medRxiv are the leading discipline-specific examples in the life and health sciences.

    What are the disadvantages of preprints?

    Preprints add an extra step to the publishing process, are not peer-reviewed at the point of posting, and can attract premature media coverage or public comment before findings are validated. Some journals and funders still weigh these risks against the benefit of faster dissemination.

    What This Means for Institutions and Researchers

    Research administrators managing grants across multiple funders now need to track preprint policy at the individual-funder level rather than assuming a single institutional rule applies. A grantee funded jointly by Gates and NIH, for example, must preprint to satisfy Gates while still separately depositing the accepted manuscript in PMC for NIH.

    • Confirm licence requirements before deposit — Gates and HHMI specify CC BY, which is not the default licence offered on every server.
    • Do not treat NIH Preprint Pilot indexing as equivalent to Public Access Policy compliance — the two are separate obligations.
    • Check Wellcome’s public-health-emergency criteria before assuming preprinting is optional on a given grant.
    • Record the openRxiv terms of use in grant files, since bioRxiv and medRxiv are no longer governed by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

    The Direction of Travel for Funder Preprint Policy

    The trend across 2025 and 2026 runs firmly toward mandatory preprinting among the largest philanthropic funders, while NIH and Wellcome hold a more conditional position rooted in their existing open access frameworks. Institutions should expect more funders to follow the Gates and HHMI model as preprint infrastructure matures under openRxiv’s independent stewardship. Research administration teams that build funder-specific preprint checklists now, rather than applying a single blanket policy, will be better placed as more mandates convert from encouragement to requirement.

    For related definitions and terminology used across research administration and open access compliance, see the CASRAI Dictionary and the research administration resource hub.

  • Research Square vs bioRxiv: Ownership & Fees

    Research Square vs bioRxiv is, at its core, a nonprofit-versus-commercial question: Research Square is a preprint platform owned by the for-profit publisher Springer Nature, while bioRxiv and medRxiv are nonprofit servers now governed by openRxiv, an independent 501(c)(3) that took over from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in March 2025. Both are free for authors to use, but the ownership structure behind each one shapes fees, licensing control, data governance and long-term archival continuity in ways that matter for anyone advising authors on where to post.

    A preprint server is an online platform where researchers deposit manuscripts before, or independently of, formal peer review. Research Square, bioRxiv and medRxiv are three of the most widely used servers in the life, health and biomedical sciences, and authors are increasingly asked to choose between them without understanding what sits behind each brand.

    What Is the Core Difference Between Research Square and bioRxiv?

    The core difference is legal ownership and mission accountability, not scope or screening rigour. Research Square traces to American Journal Experts (AJE); Springer Nature took a minority stake in the Research Square platform in 2018, became majority owner in 2020, and completed full acquisition of Research Square Company in 2022. It is, today, a wholly commercial subsidiary of a for-profit publishing group.

    bioRxiv was founded in 2013 by John Inglis and Richard Sever at CSHL, a nonprofit research institution. medRxiv followed in 2019 as a partnership between CSHL, Yale University and BMJ. In March 2025, governance of both servers passed from CSHL to openRxiv, a newly formed independent nonprofit whose stated mission is “creating opportunities for sharing, discovering, and advancing preprints in the life and health sciences” — with a dedicated board and a Scientific and Medical Advisory Board of researchers overseeing policy.

    Feature Research Square bioRxiv / medRxiv (via openRxiv)
    Governing entity Springer Nature (for-profit publisher) openRxiv (independent nonprofit, 501(c)(3))
    Platform launched 2016, under Research Square Company bioRxiv 2013; medRxiv 2019
    Ownership shift Minority stake 2018 → majority 2020 → full acquisition 2022 Transitioned from CSHL to independent nonprofit, March 2025
    Author posting fee Free Free
    Sustainability model Cross-subsidised by Springer Nature publishing and AJE author-services revenue Philanthropic and institutional grants (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Sergey Brin Family Foundation, Robert Lourie Foundation, partner universities)
    Default licence CC-BY 4.0 required for all preprints Author’s choice: CC0, CC-BY, CC-BY-NC, CC-BY-ND, CC-BY-NC-ND, or no reuse without permission
    Journal integration In Review, tied to 1,000+ participating journals No equivalent journal-submission integration
    Bulk text-and-data-mining access No published bulk TDM programme; access via Crossref metadata and the site Monthly XML/PDF corpus via a requester-pays AWS S3 bucket, plus a public metadata API
    Long-term preservation Portico Portico

    Who Pays, and How Is Each Platform Funded?

    Neither model charges authors to post a preprint — that much is identical. What differs is where the money to run the platform comes from, and what that implies about future incentives. Research Square’s operating costs are absorbed by Springer Nature’s commercial publishing business and by AJE’s paid author-services division (editing, translation and related products), which Research Square continues to cross-sell alongside free preprint posting.

    openRxiv, by contrast, depends on renewable philanthropic and institutional grants rather than a parent company’s revenue. Its principal funders include the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Sergey Brin Family Foundation, the Robert Lourie Foundation and a consortium of supporting universities including Caltech, MIT, Stanford, Yale and the University of Washington. That is a genuine trade-off, not a straightforward win for either side:

    • Research Square’s commercial backing gives it predictable, revenue-linked funding, but ties its long-term direction to Springer Nature’s corporate strategy.
    • openRxiv’s nonprofit funding is mission-locked by governance structure, but depends on grant renewal cycles rather than a guaranteed revenue stream.

    Who Owns and Controls Author Data?

    Ownership of the underlying manuscript stays with authors on both platforms — this is not a copyright grab by either side. The meaningful difference is licensing control and third-party data access. Research Square requires every posted preprint to carry a CC-BY 4.0 licence, which is the most permissive open licence and maximises reuse rights for readers, but leaves authors no choice in the matter.

    bioRxiv and medRxiv give authors a menu of licence options — CC0, CC-BY, CC-BY-NC, CC-BY-ND, CC-BY-NC-ND, or a “no reuse without permission” setting — and authors can change the licence on an existing preprint after posting. That is more author control, though funders that mandate CC-BY (a growing norm, including under several cOAlition S-aligned policies) require authors to actively select it rather than receiving it by default.

    The two models also diverge sharply on bulk data access. openRxiv publishes a full monthly XML/PDF text-and-data-mining corpus through a requester-pays AWS S3 bucket, alongside a public metadata API — an open-infrastructure commitment consistent with nonprofit, grant-funded governance. Research Square does not publish an equivalent bulk TDM feed; third-party discovery of Research Square content runs through Crossref DOI metadata and the platform’s own search interface rather than a dedicated open corpus.

    What Long-Term Archival Guarantees Does Each Model Offer?

    Both platforms use the same third-party preservation service: Portico provides perpetual-access archiving for preprints posted to Research Square, bioRxiv and medRxiv alike, so the archive itself is not where the two models diverge.

    The real difference is organisational continuity risk. A commercial platform’s archival commitments are ultimately corporate policy that could change with ownership or strategy; a nonprofit platform’s commitments are set by a mission-bound board, though it carries the separate risk of grant-funding renewal. Advising authors on a multi-decade preprint record means treating “who governs the archive” as distinct from “where is the archive stored.”

    Common Questions About Research Square and bioRxiv

    Is bioRxiv reputable?

    Yes. bioRxiv is widely cited across molecular and cell biology, screens submissions for plagiarism and non-scientific content, and is now governed by openRxiv, an independent nonprofit with a Scientific and Medical Advisory Board. Its reputation rests on community adoption and transparent, nonprofit governance rather than commercial incentives.

    Does bioRxiv count as published?

    No. A bioRxiv or medRxiv preprint is not peer-reviewed and does not constitute formal publication. The ICMJE treats preprints as legitimate scholarly communication, not duplicate publication, but funders and REF-style assessment exercises generally still require the peer-reviewed version for compliance credit.

    Is bioRxiv a preprint?

    bioRxiv is not itself a preprint — it is the server that hosts preprints. A preprint is the individual manuscript version posted before or independent of peer review; bioRxiv is the nonprofit infrastructure, now under openRxiv, that makes that posting possible for life-science research.

    What are the alternatives to bioRxiv?

    Alternatives include medRxiv for clinical and public-health research, Research Square for multidisciplinary and journal-integrated posting, and repository-style options such as arXiv, the Open Science Framework, Figshare and Zenodo. The right choice depends on discipline, human-subjects status and whether journal-integrated posting matters.

    What This Means for Authors and Research Administrators

    For most authors, the nonprofit-versus-commercial distinction will not change whether posting is free — it usually is, on both models. It should change how administrators frame the advice they give:

    • Explain that Research Square’s mandatory CC-BY licence maximises reuse but removes licensing choice, while bioRxiv/medRxiv give authors more control over which licence applies.
    • Flag that researchers doing large-scale corpus analysis will find far richer bulk access through openRxiv’s TDM feeds than through Research Square.
    • Note that archival preservation (Portico) is equivalent across models — the open question is who controls future platform policy, not the archive.
    • Treat commercial ownership as a disclosure point, not a disqualifier: Springer Nature’s backing gives Research Square’s In Review workflow journal-integration value a nonprofit model does not replicate.

    As more research administration offices build formal preprint guidance into their researcher-facing documentation, the originating business model behind a server deserves the same disclosure as its discipline coverage or screening depth. Authors are entitled to know not just where their manuscript will sit, but who ultimately governs the platform holding it — a nonprofit board answerable to a research mission, or a commercial parent answerable to shareholders.

    Last updated: 3 July 2026.