Every scientist hopes for a fair editorial process and constructive peer reviews when submitting a manuscript to a journal. Publication remains a defining milestone for authors when completing a research project, but the journey can be complex. A manuscript may travel from journal to journal, collecting rounds of review as it goes. Authors may spend months responding to successive panels of reviewers; and each evaluation is shaped as much by a given journal’s editorial priorities as by the science itself.
Review Commons, a preprint peer review platform, was created to address this. Rather than asking reviewers whether a manuscript suits a particular journal, we ask them to evaluate the science first, before the preprint is submitted to a journal. Authors thus receive journal-independent peer reviews, revise their manuscript accordingly, and only then decide to submit to one of the journals affiliated with Review Commons.
How does this work out for authors in practice?
To find out, we spoke with four researchers who have repeatedly chosen Review Commons for their own work: See-Yeun Ting, Jordan Raff, R. Andersson and Friedrich Frischknecht. They work across different disciplines and are at different stages of their careers. Each came to Review Commons for their own reasons. What brought them back, in every case, was the nature of the peer review process.
Hear more from them.
See-Yeun Ting: Bringing the focus back to the science
See-Yeun Ting is a Principal Investigator at Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan, and his work focuses on interbacterial interactions in microbial communities. He has published two manuscripts through Review Commons.
See-Yeun feels that a paper should be evaluated independently of where it will eventually be published.
“The review comments no longer tell you that your research is not suitable for a particular journal. They only focus on the science. I think we should continue to focus on science instead of looking at the name of the journal.”
For him, this lets reviewers concentrate on what they know best: identifying strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities to improve the work.
“Our first experience with Review Commons went very well. We went back to the lab, carried out the experiments suggested by the reviewers, submitted the revision, and found the whole process fast and constructive. That’s why we’ve continued using it.”
In his experience, the reviewers requested experiments that genuinely strengthened the paper without becoming unrealistic. It also changed how he now approaches peer review.
“As a reviewer, I also try to give constructive suggestions—things that the authors can realistically do during the revision. You cannot just suggest experiments that would take more than a year. That would be too challenging. Review should help authors improve the science.”
For See-Yeun, a good peer review should challenge the research, but it should also respect the realities of doing science. The objective is not to produce an ever-growing list of additional experiments, but to help authors build the strongest possible paper.
Jordan Raff: Separating science evaluation from journal choice
Jordan Raff is Professor of Cell Biology at the University of Oxford and studies the molecular mechanisms regulating centriole and centrosome assembly. He has published six manuscripts through Review Commons and has extensive experience as both an author and reviewer.
As someone who has served as Editor-in-Chief of Biology Open, one of the Review Commons affiliate journals, Jordan has spent many years thinking about how journals make editorial decisions. What impressed him about Review Commons was that reviewers were asked to focus only on the science, not journal fit.
“The reviews are actually very similar to good journal reviews. They tell you what’s convincing, what needs more evidence and what could be improved. But one sentence is missing: ‘This is really good work, but it is not appropriate for journal X.'”
For Jordan, this is a fundamental difference, and it gives authors something they rarely have in conventional publishing: the opportunity to make an informed decision after receiving expert scientific feedback, rather than trying to predict a journal’s expectations before peer review has even begun.
That flexibility is particularly valuable for researchers who wish to publish in community journals run by not-for-profit organisations.
“There are some outstanding journals run by scientific societies and other not-for-profit organisations. I’ve always felt it’s important to support that part of the publishing ecosystem, and Review Commons is a really efficient way of doing that,” Jordan says, adding:”a lot of our favourite journals were already in the Review Commons stable. It just seemed like a very efficient way of connecting with those journals through a single peer-review process.”
By removing journal fit from the peer-review discussion, Review Commons allows scientific evaluation to stand on its own. The reviews become a tool for improving the manuscript, while journal selection becomes a separate editorial decision rather than part of the review itself.
Emma R. Andersson: Approaching revisions with confidence
Emma R. Andersson is Associate Professor of Developmental Biology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden and she studies cell fate and organ development in health and disease. She has published three papers through Review Commons.
For Emma, the reviews were fair but demanding. However, the whole process felt constructive.
“The reviews that we got back from Review Commons were obviously very carefully thought about. I felt that the people who had done the reviewing had taken their job seriously and had very thoroughly gone through the work. But in addition to that, the journal’s editors had taken their job seriously, looking at whether there was consensus and, if there was disagreement, helping to resolve it. The reviews were excellent, thorough and very constructive.”
Having also reviewed for Review Commons herself, Emma appreciated another feature of the process: reviewers are asked to comment on each other’s reports before they reach the authors.
“Sometimes another reviewer has misunderstood something or asks for an experiment that doesn’t seem necessary. Being able to discuss that before the reports are finalized makes the reviews much stronger.”
To Emma, this makes peer review a genuine scientific discussion that gives authors a clearer path forward.
Revision is often the most demanding phase of publication. Months of additional experiments may be needed, often with considerable uncertainty about whether the planned work will address reviewers’ expectations. For Emma, Review Commons’ option to prepare a revision plan outlining how the authors intend to address the comments in advance was very motivating: editors can assess the plan before the experimental work begins and provide editorial feedback on the proposed revision.
“The student was so much more motivated to do the revision work because we felt that we were going in the right direction. We knew this was probably what the editor and reviewers wanted to see. With other journals you’re just guessing. You think you’ve answered their questions, but for all you know they meant something else. Getting that feedback in advance was really valuable and very motivating for the student.”
Another aspect of the process gave her confidence throughout the publication journey.
“I thought it was amazing to be able to bring our revision plan to a journal affiliated with Review Commons. There was a sense of security in knowing that, if one journal said no, the same work could be sent to the next journal—and then to the next. It is not a completely safe harbour, but it saved us so much time, effort and heartache.”
Friedrich Frischknecht: Making better use of peer review
Friedrich (Freddy) Frischknecht is Professor of Integrative Parasitology at Heidelberg University, Germany, where his research focuses on malaria parasites. He is a long-standing member of the Review Commons Advisory Board, has published five manuscripts through Review Commons and regularly contributes as a reviewer. Like the other authors, he values the quality of the reviews he receives through Review Commons, but his perspective on the process was broader. He thinks about what peer review means for the scientific community.
Throughout his career, he has witnessed manuscripts travel from journal to journal, collecting new reviewers at every step. For him, this has never seemed like the best use of the community’s expertise. Review Commons breaks that cycle by allowing peer review to travel with the manuscript.
“We’ve always received fair and constructive comments. Then you address them, like you would for any journal, but what I really appreciate is that you can just go from one journal to the next. Most of the time the first journal accepted the paper, but when it didn’t, we could immediately transfer it.”
For Freddy, this goes beyond convenience for authors. It is also a better use of the time and expertise invested by reviewers. If peer review has already improved a manuscript, it should continue to benefit that manuscript wherever it is published.
“Once you’ve addressed the reviewers’ comments, you don’t have to start all over again. You simply move on to the next journal. It just saves so much time!”
Spread the word!
Review Commons was created to enrich preprints with expert peer review and make the publication process more efficient by separating scientific evaluation from journal selection. Supported by a consortium of affiliate journals, it represents a unique cross-publisher collaborative effort to rethink one of the most established parts of scientific publishing.
What See-Yeun, Jordan, Emma and Freddy described is a review process centered on the science itself. The process provides rigorous and constructive feedback, supports meaningful revision, and gives authors the confidence to navigate publication with greater clarity.
We hope they convinced you to try Review Commons for your next manuscript and spread the good word. As Freddy said: “I wish this was something that existed across many more journals.”
