For PREreview, community input is the most reliable compass. In February, we shared our strategic goals with you in a community call designed to listen deeply, learn together, and imagine what’s possible. Here’s what emerged.
On February 11 we gathered together to present the PREreview 2026-2029 Strategic Plan to our community, learn which areas of focus engage them most, and invite their participation in. Eighteen people from different countries and professional backgrounds joined the call to help shape our work for the next three years.
💡 If you haven’t done so already, you can read our Strategic Plan in English, Latin American Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese (soon) and drop your thoughts too.
What we learned from you
To break the ice, we first asked the Community Call participants what they thought PREreview does as an organization. Here’s a visual summary of what they said:
Then, we prompted participants to write on a notes document, type down in the Zoom chat, and/or vocalize their thoughts on several aspects of our work. We grouped the answers into common themes (in italic):
1. New features, initiatives, or programs you could imagine PREreview undertaking
Expand multilingualism beyond translation: recognition for reviewing in languages other than English; develop a structured multilingual review pathway.
Decentralize governance: Regional nodes/hubs adapting resources to local culture & seeking partnerships with regional preprint/dataset servers.
Lower barriers for participation: Video tutorials for authors, reviewers, and editors in multiple languages; harness social media as a space to review research; scholarships/financial aid for community members from underrepresented regions in the Open Science realm to attend conferences.
Community building & networking: Annual virtual symposium on open peer review innovations;
Institutional collaborations for a systemic shift: Promoting PREreview’s work and vision in university settings; partnering with universities to advance Open Science practices.
2. What are we doing right now that we should keep doing?
Experimenting with modular peer review: Move beyond only reviewing the final manuscript.
Peer review training: Live Reviews as a learning opportunity; train-the-trainer programs like the Champions Program to make cultural changes faster.
Safeguarding shared spaces: Offering bot-free online meetings; clear and respectful guidelines for recording meetings; providing diverse modes of participating and sharing ideas.
Supporting grassroots multipliers: Promoting the creation of new Clubs in different regions and languages.
3. Things that do not fit with your understanding of our Strategic Plan and we should avoid doing
Aligning too much to the current journal system and (not) being careful with partnerships.
4. What’s missing?
Leverage of open source software: Make tools and resources available in platforms like Etherpad or HedgeDoc.
Considering the various roles preprints play in the scholarly publishing ecosystem: Incorporate a “should I review this?” step in the workflow to assess whether the authors have actually published the preprint with the goal of further developing the research.
Style/accessibility guidelines for preprint authors: To make the manuscripts easier to read and review (text justification, page & line number, page size).
Stay connected
If you have feedback on our Strategic Plan, drop us an email at community@prereview.org.
You can follow PREreview updates on Mastodon, BlueSky, LinkedIn, and YouTube. You can also keep up with all the latest news by subscribing to our newsletter and joining our Slack community.
