Reimagining Scientific Publishing: The Peer Community In Revolution

Description

As part of Open Access Week 2025, Thomas Guillemaud and Denis Bourguet, senior scientists at INRAE and co-founders of the groundbreaking Peer Community In (PCI) initiative, will deliver a keynote exploring a bold new vision for scholarly publishing. PCI offers a free, transparent, and community-driven alternative to traditional journals by organizing disciplinary communities of researchers who evaluate and recommend preprints. Join the Johns Hopkins Libraries to rethink the future of scholarly communication and consider how open, inclusive, and researcher-led models like PCI can reshape academia for the better.

Since its launch in 2017, PCI has grown into a global movement with over 20 thematic communities, more than 2,500 participating scientists, and support from more than 200 institutions worldwide. Each PCI community, such as PCI Evolutionary Biology, PCI Ecology, and PCI Registered Reports, operates like a journal but without the financial and accessibility barriers. Recommenders (acting as editors) oversee rigorous peer review and publish openly accessible recommendations, complete with DOIs, making preprints citable and credible.

Guillemaud and Bourguet will share insights into the origins of PCI, born from their critique of the costly and opaque traditional publishing system, and discuss how PCI empowers researchers to reclaim control over the dissemination of scientific knowledge.

Organized by the Sheridan Libraries, Welch Medical Library, Arthur Friedheim Library, and Johns Hopkins Research Administration. Complete information may be found on the Open Access Week at Johns Hopkins Libraries web page.