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servers for discipline-, country-, publisher- and funder-specific research, made possible by advances in server technology and institutional and philanthropic funding. Combined with platforms such as the Open Science Framework, which allows you to search the different servers for articles of interest, research becomes both available and discoverable, an advantage for many authors.
Why is there such a big discrepancy in the use of preprints between different disciplines?
Mellins-Cohen, Microbiology Society: The research lifecycle and research outputs themselves differ dramatically between disciplines. In the arts, humanities and social sciences, for example, the text written by an author is their research output: the precise choice of words and phrases matters. By contrast, while articles are important to researchers in the sciences (who need them to capture citations and aid with grant applications and career progression), their protocols, data and analyses are the critical research output. Scientists also seem to be much more focused on the issue of ‘priority’, and issuing a preprint allows them to claim priority even if their article then takes a long time to get through peer review (this is so well accepted that most funding bodies, including UKRI, Wellcome and the US National Institutes of Health, allow researchers to cite preprints in their grant applications). Against that background, it is easy to see why some sciences have embraced preprint servers more enthusiastically than some arts and humanities disciplines.
Curno, Frontiers: Some disciplines, such as physics, have had a long history of working in larger collaborative efforts, such as CERN, for example. In an environment like this author credit is distributed across a large number of contributors and often reproducing data is a significant endeavour. Therefore, authors in these communities
“Researchers increasingly recognise that there are benefits in being able to share their work quickly”
12 Research Information April/May 2020 Mirjam Curno
might perceive less risk of not being credited with the data generation. In other disciplines, such as medicine
for example, there has been hesitation about making non-peer-reviewed results accessible due to the potential consequences of using unverified findings for treatment purposes. Preprints offering unverified insights into the coronavirus are a good example of how this could be problematic, particularly at a time when people are rushing to deliver solutions.
Kenall, Research Square: As mentioned earlier, there is a particular urgency in some fields, such as in outbreak related research. The cultures of different fields differ quite a bit, as do the journal policies in these fields. Funders in some fields have been more supportive of preprints than others as well. Gates and Wellcome both mandate deposition of preprints during public health emergencies. Biomedical funders like the NIH also encourage the use of preprints on grant applications.
Macdonald, Sabir, Koder, Pharmagenesis: While researchers in engineering and physical sciences have been engaging with preprints for almost two decades, their uptake has been slower in other disciplines – most notably in clinical research. In addition to the universal risk of research being ‘scooped’, many medical researchers remain concerned over the potential risks to public health in publishing research that has not undergone formal peer review. As preprints are available open access, there a risk of unvetted information being misinterpreted and misunderstood by healthcare professionals and the general public alike. Beyond the risk for medical science generally, the pharma industry must also take care to avoid any sense of promoting off-label use of medicines. The
Michael Foster
dissemination of so-called ‘bad science’ also poses a risk to the public’s trust in medical research, a concern for academia and pharma alike.
How do preprints benefit the research community?
Mellins-Cohen, Microbiology Society: I’ve already mentioned that preprints allow authors to establish priority for the work they have done by providing a public record: that gives the authors credit and allows them to accrue citations to their work even before formal publication. Then there is the increased visibility: preprints are open access by their nature, meaning that they are easy for other researchers to find and cite as well as being available more rapidly than traditional publication routes. Lastly, preprints can supplement traditional peer review by allowing a wide circle of peers to discover the work and contact the author with suggestions for improvements that might be made before the final version is published.
Curno, Frontiers: There are benefits to preprints; wider and more rapid dissemination of results, and easier and unrestricted access, for example. Once published in preprint, authors may receive feedback from a wider circle beyond what they might expect during peer review, although the quality of this feedback cannot, of course, be guaranteed. From an editors’ perspective, preprints offer an opportunity to scout for new work of interest to their respective fields and invite submissions to their journal. A number of journals have partnerships with preprints. Our platform at Frontiers, for example, allows authors to easily submit papers from
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