The annual €350,000 Einstein Foundation Award for Promoting Quality in Research in cooperation with the QUEST Center for Responsible Research at the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) is inviting applications and nominations again.

The international award is open to any researcher, or group of researchers, institution and organization around the globe whose work helps to fundamentally advance the quality, transparency, and reproducibility of science and research in all disciplines.

→ Submit online

The deadline for entries is April 30, 2026 (10:00 pm UTC). The awardees will be announced by the end of 2026.

The award recognizes successful candidates in the following three categories:

Individual Award (€150,000): Individuals or small teams making a profound impact on research quality are eligible for self-nomination or nomination by others.

Institutional Award (€100,000): Organizations, large collaborative networks, or other entities that make an exceptional contribution to advancing research quality may apply or be nominated.

Early Career Award (€100,000): Early career researchers and small teams are encouraged to apply with bold, innovative projects that advance transparency, robustness, and integrity in research.

In 2025, personality psychologist Simine Vazire, Professor of Psychology Ethics and Wellbeing at the University of Melbourne, won the Individual Award for advancing methodological rigor, reproducibility, and collaborative research in psychology, and for shaping initiatives such as the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS) and the journal Collabra. The Institutional Award went to the Brazilian Reproducibility Initiative, a nationwide effort to systematically evaluate research results in laboratory biology and the largest coordinated replication effort in the field worldwide, showcasing the transformative potential of country-level research improvement efforts. The Early Career Award was won by Maximilian Sprang for his project Erring Rigorously, which improves reproducibility in functional genomics by distinguishing true biological signals from technical errors in high-throughput sequencing.

Learn more about all past winners and finalists here.

Selection

An international, interdisciplinary, and diverse panel of researchers and research quality activists will evaluate submissions and select awardees. Meet the jury here.

For questions, please contact Einstein Foundation Award Coordinator Dr. Ulrike Pannasch: award@einsteinfoundation.de

The award is bestowed jointly with the QUEST Center for Responsible Research at the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. The individual and institutional awards are funded by the Wübben Stiftung Wissenschaft, while the BIH QUEST Center for Responsible Research supports the Early Career Award. Additional resources are made available by the State of Berlin. The publisher Nature Portfolio, the Public Library of Science (PLOS), the National Academy of Sciences, the Berlin University Alliance, the Max Planck Society and the Max Planck Foundation support the Einstein Foundation Berlin and the BIH QUEST Center in promoting and implementing the award. 

About

The Einstein Foundation Berlin is an independent, not-for-profit, science-led funding organization established as a foundation under civil law in 2009. Since then, its task has been to promote cutting-edge international science and research across disciplines and institutions in and for Berlin. To date, it has funded eight Einstein Centers, over 70 pro­jects, and more than 240 researchers, including three Nobel laureates.

The BIH QUEST Center for Responsible Research at Charité was founded in 2017 as part of the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité. QUEST develops and implements new approaches to support that biomedical research is conducted in a trustworthy manner, provides useful results, and meets ethical standards. The focus is on Open Science, Indicators & Incentives, Quality Assurance, Patient & Stakeholder Engagement, Education & Training and Meta Research.

Wübben Stiftung Wissenschaft is a private grant-making foundation based in Berlin. It aims to help strengthen Germany as an excellent, internationally visible, and competitive science and research hub. In addition to the Einstein Foundation Award, the Wübben Stiftung Wissenschaft supports the Einstein Foundation’s ‘Einstein Strategic Professorships’ funding programme.

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The new journals, including their scope, include:

PLOS Aging and Heath: an open access journal that will publish boundary breaking work from researchers, clinicians, public health scientists, social scientists, and policymakers across the spectrum of aging research. The scope includes research that advances our understanding of aging, integrating biological, developmental, clinical, neurological, and functional dimensions. The journal will highlight factors such as disease processes, cognitive and mental health changes, geriatric care, lifestyle interventions, advances in technology, healthcare systems, social determinants, and policy approaches to understand and optimize health across the human lifespan. It will also address the societal, policy, and healthcare system transformations required to support healthy aging and quality of life on an individual level and across diverse and evolving populations.

“As researchers, we tend to individually study relatively narrow areas, in terms of scope. Bringing together multidisciplinary, global researchers can help advance understanding of the implications of research findings, generating new ideas and innovations that stand to impact a greater number of people worldwide,” said Jennifer A. Schrack, Co-Editor-in-Chief, PLOS Aging and Health. “We are stronger together than independently, and our research needs to reflect that. The field of aging research is limited by journals that are siloed in terms of scope, for example, biology, clinical, cognitive, or policy-related only. PLOS Aging and Health presents the exciting opportunity to publish research across these boundaries to increase visibility of research findings and methods.”

“I am thrilled to be working alongside Jennifer, and the entire PLOS team, as we focus on studies from a human perspective where the translational aspects on biological mechanisms and clinical usefulness will be emphasized,” said Sara Hägg, Co-Editor-in-Chief, PLOS Aging and Heath. “The aging field is still emerging and attracting many new researchers, and by imbedding open science principles in the research we publish, we hope to accelerate the findings in the aging research field and support the highest standard possible in research ethics.”

PLOS Ecosystems: a multidisciplinary, open access journal that brings together research relevant to addressing the challenges facing our terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems and nature’s contributions to people. This selective, community-driven journal is a venue for the breadth of impactful and societally relevant research on the conservation, management, restoration, sustainability and use of ecosystems across scales. The scope of topics is therefore wide, including disciplines from both natural and social sciences, but also interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research involving policymakers, resource managers and practitioners. By connecting scientists from a wide breadth of disciplines, but also practitioners, and decision-makers, it will foster the exchange of knowledge, promote innovation, and strengthen the links between science, policy, and society to drive solutions for the biodiversity and environmental crises of our time.

“I am excited to lead this journal at this inflection point for our planet,” said Henrique Miguel Pereira, Editor-in-Chief, PLOS Ecosystems. “As ecosystems are transformed and biodiversity declines at an alarming pace, we are not only losing the results of millions of years of evolution but also missing vital opportunities to address interconnected global challenges — from climate change to sustainable agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and the creation of healthier and more livable cities.”

“Both of these titles give researchers a forum to directly address critical challenges facing our society today,” said Lauren Coligan, Publisher, PLOS. “We believe that by extending our suite of open science journals we can influence open science norms in these research communities in considered and appropriate ways while providing rapid access to research which can directly change the future.”

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Halle/Saale, Germany, and San Francisco, United States – The Public Library of Science (PLOS) and the Global Young Academy (GYA), an international academy based in Halle, Germany, today announced that they will collaborate with one another to increase the awareness of Open Science, its principles, and its implementation into research practices. 

The Global Young Academy is an international academy of young scientists, which aims to give a voice to young scientists across the globe. The GYA develops, connects, mobilizes and empowers young researchers to lead international, interdisciplinary and intergenerational dialogue. Much of the work of the GYA occurs within member-organized working groups, one of which is the Open Science working group. 

“GYA’s Open Science working group strives to raise awareness of Open Science principles and approaches among young scientists and to provide input into Open Science policies from a diverse, international perspective,” said Tasha Gownaris, GYA Open Science Working Group Co-Lead. “We are excited about the work that PLOS is doing and are looking forward to closely collaborating on initiatives to make science more effective, equitable, and accessible.”

“This strategic partnership with the Global Young Academy will ensure that early-career researchers can inform and help to shape PLOS’ continuing efforts to increase equitable participation in Open Science,” said Roheena Anand, Executive Director of Global Publishing Development, PLOS. “The GYA’s input will be fundamental to ensuring that our Open Science solutions will serve the needs of early career researchers across the globe.”

PLOS and the GYA are invested in an Open future and want to work with stakeholders across the scholarly communication ecosystem to promote and increase uptake of Open Access and Open Science more broadly. 

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This specialized service has provided life-saving support to over 1.3 million LGBTQ+ young people since its inception in 2022. Its closure comes at a time when LGBTQ+ youth face disproportionately high rates of suicidal ideation and mental health challenges, often exacerbated by discrimination, stigma, and lack of culturally competent care. 

We stand firmly behind the principles of openness, inclusion, and equity—values that are foundational to our mission. We believe that science and public health must serve all communities, especially those most vulnerable. The decision to defund LGBTQ+-specific crisis services undermines evidence-based public health policy and disregards the urgent needs of a population at elevated risk.  

We are committed to publishing and promoting research that informs compassionate, inclusive, and scientifically sound health interventions. Below is a list of studies from PLOS journals, specific to this topic, and a list of resources that LGBTQ+ people can access if they need help (these resources were mentioned in the Scholarly Kitchen post). 

Resources:

• National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)

• The Trevor Project 

• Virtual Hope Box, Suicide Safe, and Suicide Safety Plan

Studies: 

PLOS Mental Health

• Nonverbal expressions of shame predict suicidal ideation among rurally-situated, but not urban situated, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) adults

• Multilevel barriers and facilitators to behavioral health treatment among Latino sexual minority men 
• The role of social determinants of health in mental health: An examination of the moderating effects of race, ethnicity, and gender on depression through the all of us research program dataset     
• Trauma and resilience in an urban clinic for unhoused young adults: A mixed methods study 

PLOS Medicine

• A multicomponent digital intervention to promote help-seeking for mental health problems and suicide in sexual and gender diverse young adults: A randomized controlled trial | PLOS Medicine
• The effect of a therapeutic smartphone application on suicidal ideation in young adults: Findings from a randomized controlled trial in Australia | PLOS Medicine
• Development and validation of the Durham Risk Score for estimating suicide attempt risk: A prospective cohort analysis | PLOS Medicine 

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SAN FRANCISCO, CA —The Public Library of Science (PLOS) today announced a publishing agreement with Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), enabling its researchers to have unlimited publishing in all PLOS Journals. MAHE is participating in our Community Action Publishing, Global Equity and Flat Fee models that shift publishing costs from authors to research institutions. The publishing agreement runs through 2026.

“Manipal Academy of Higher Education, recognized as an Institute of Eminence by the Government of India, is proud to partner with PLOS under an institutional agreement, which aligns seamlessly with our commitment to fostering open, accessible, and impactful research. This collaboration removes financial barriers of the paywall, allowing researchers across the globe to freely access the content published by MAHE researchers,” said Dr. Santhosh KV, Open Access Coordinator, MAHE. “As one of India’s most prestigious academic institutions, we believe this step will significantly enhance the global visibility and reach of research emerging from MAHE and empower our scholars to contribute more robustly to the global scientific community.”

“We are proud to partner with MAHE as they share our vision of realizing a more equitable and barrier-free form of publishing,” said Roheena Anand, Executive Director of Global Publishing Development & Sales at PLOS. “This agreement expands our footprint in India but, more importantly, helps to provide open science opportunities for researchers in the region.”

“We are incredibly proud to announce an exclusive partnership with PLOS, a pioneer in open access publishing, bringing their innovative institutional models to India for the first time,” said Sameer Puri, Founder & CEO, SPUR Infosolutions. “This partnership’s first major initiative is an agreement with MAHE, fostering greater participation and collaboration by enabling them to share their work with the global research community. Our reach and comprehensive understanding of the Indian market, combined with PLOS’ commitment to open science, will create a powerful synergy that benefits India’s entire research community. We look forward to bringing similar opportunities to more institutions across India.”

MAHE joins SURF in the Netherlands, Jisc in the UK, NorthEast Research Libraries (NERL) and the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) in the USA, CRKN in Canada, Leibniz Information Center for Science and Technology (TIB) in Germany, Irish Research Library (IReL) in Ireland and Couperin in France in signing agreements with PLOS to facilitate open access publishing for their member institutions.

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1. Proposed Policy Options

We recognize NIH’s aim to maximize the value of taxpayer funds and increase the efficiency of research funding. However, the proposed approach of capping or limiting allowable publication costs will not achieve this goal and risks creating unintended consequences. To advance NIH’s mission, enabling open science should be at the core of any policy consideration, particularly increased transparency and access to all research outputs.

• Article processing charge (APC) caps are not an effective cost control mechanism. A fundamental driver of journal choice is the research assessment system, not author cost sensitivity. The current research assessment and incentive systems rely on numbers: the number of articles published and the Journal Impact Factor (or journal names/’prestige’), contributing to a hypercompetitive environment that rewards quantity and prestige (or falsely equates it with quality). Data, code, protocols and other important outputs are not shared and valued to the same extent as articles, and researchers who make them accessible are by and large not rewarded. To address the fundamental issue, efforts such as Rethinking Researcher Assessment and Incentives at U.S. Academic Institutions should be supported.
• Per-unit pricing models, such as APCs, entrench inefficiencies. Models that tie value to “per article” charges restrict flexibility, discourage sharing of diverse outputs (data, code, protocols) and embed the article as the primary research artifact of value. NIH should instead support models that move beyond articles and beyond APCs and reinforce open science.
• Imposing caps will likely encourage publishers to set publishing fees at the maximum allowable level, rather than reduce costs. This risks replicating the experience of capped higher education tuition fees in the UK, where nearly all institutions charged the maximum allowable amount. This will further fuel a research “volume business” as publishers continue to push for article growth, increasing profits and exacerbating the existing pressure on researchers to publish. The article growth economy is unhelpful for science, unhelpful for openness and entrenches the article as the primary valuable research artifact. 
• A better alternative would be to fund institutions and libraries to secure open access publishing services, enabling system-level efficiency and reducing reliance on APCs and APC-driven models. These funds should be considered in tandem with the considerable institution and library spend already allocated to paywalled publication access via subscriptions.

NIH’s proposal to limit allowable publishing costs should also be evaluated against the Nelson memo’s stated aim to “provide free, immediate (without embargo), and equitable access to research that is federally funded.” to avoid unintentionally hindering its aims. 

In sum, rather than capping costs at the article level, NIH should encourage research assessment reform and collective funding to support business models that incentivize openness and quality across all outputs. Such approaches more closely reflect the values of transparency, accessibility, and equity that define open science.

2. Available Evidence Related to Publication Costs and Proposed Options

• Distribution of research spending. Roughly 80% of scholarly publishing expenditure remains in subscription access; only 20% supports open access fees. Yet that 20% unlocks more than 50% of publications for open availability (DeltaThink). Focussing only on cost management via APCs and associated caps risks pushing research back behind paywalls, raising total costs for taxpayers. While preprinting is proposed as a solution to this uptake remains low and they are not routinely reviewed.
• Limitations of preprints without review. PLOS supports preprints because they have the potential to accelerate the dissemination of new research. However, while valuable, preprints are not a substitute for peer-reviewed outputs. These limitations highlight that, without appropriate funding, preprints remove an important element of research validation. PLOS’s own experiment shows that preprint review has associated cost and requires funding.  
• Evidence on open access value. Studies show open access articles are read, downloaded, and cited more. PLOS analysis of French Open Science Monitor data demonstrated an 8.6% citation increase for OA articles, with additional benefits for data, code, and preprint sharing.

NIH’s reliance on DOAJ averages for setting APC limits raises important questions. It is not clear whether NIH-funded researchers typically publish in the journals analyzed, whether they meet NIH quality and licensing criteria, or whether they publish at sufficient scale. The approach appears to work backwards from what the average journal in DOAJ charges, rather than reflecting the actual costs of the services NIH seeks to support. Not all DOAJ journals, for example, offer the required CC0 license, and standards vary significantly. Using this as the sole basis for policy may risk undervaluing quality and integrity.

Additional commentary on publication costs and open access economics can be found on the PLOS Blog.

3. Peer Review Compensation

Peer review is an essential part of the research process, but paying reviewers directly creates unintended consequences and perverse incentives:

• Unintended consequences. Compensating reviewers could increase publication costs overall (publishers may pass on costs) and risk lowering quality if reviewers accept assignments outside their expertise to earn payments.
  
• Better alternatives. Recognition of peer review as a core part of research activity is more effective. Reviews should be published (with consent) and credited to reviewers, making them visible in research assessment exercises.
  
• Transparency. Peer review should, where possible, be conducted transparently and shared in line with open science goals. Transparent peer review strengthens accountability and ensures reviewers receive recognition for their contributions. See PLOS’ commentary on publishing peer review history.
  
• Evidence. The Publons Global State of Peer Review (2018) shows that recognition and career incentives have a greater impact on efficiency than direct payments.
  
• Training. Investment in peer reviewer training demonstrably improves review quality. NIH support for recognition and training would be a more sustainable policy direction.

Promoting recognition of peer review aligns with the principles of open science: transparency, accountability, and equitable credit for contributions beyond the published article. See PLOS’ commentary on peer review recognition.

NIH’s calculation ($1,000 extra per article) underestimates the cost of multiple review rounds and undervalues the seniority of many peer reviewers. This calculation risks creating unrealistic expectations and confusion in implementation.

And consideration must be given to the overall costs of publishing which extend beyond peer review. Essential services include research integrity checks, assessment of methodological rigor, editorial oversight, production, dissemination, and long-term archiving. Any cost framework that focuses too narrowly risks overlooking these necessary quality assurance and stewardship functions.

4. Publishing Best Practice

The NIH’s proposed policy risks reinforcing a narrow focus on the article as the sole marker of academic and research value. This undermines the benefits of an open science ecosystem, which recognizes the importance of diverse outputs such as data, code, protocols, and preprints as integral to transparency and progress. In “Rethinking how we publish to support Open Science”, we discuss the need to move beyond the article and beyond the APC:  

• Beyond the article. Ascribing both academic and economic value only at the point of article publication entrenches legacy costs and discourages the sharing of other important outputs. Evidence such as the State of Open Data 2024: Special Report shows that lack of credit remains a primary barrier to wider data sharing.
  
• Alignment with open science. Business models should incentivize sharing the form of output most appropriate to the research, not just the article’s Version of Record. PLOS has been moving away from APC-based business models since 2021, including through our project to redefine publishing “Beyond the Article and Beyond the APC.” PLOS supports the position that for open science practices to be adopted widely, research outputs must be linked, discoverable, and credited in their own right, not just the article Version of Record.
  
• Benefits of openness. A knowledge-sharing ecosystem based on open science principles increases visibility, collaboration, and efficiency. Studies including an assessment of Springer hybrid journals and data from the French Open Science Monitor demonstrate citation and usage advantages for open access and for practices such as sharing data, code, and preprints.

Incorporating best practices ensures that taxpayer investment supports high-quality, trustworthy, and openly available science across all research outputs, not simply the cheapest or most traditional option. PLOS regularly shares updates on publishing innovations on our blog.

5. Other Comments

• Implementation timeline. NIH’s proposed effective date of January 1, 2026 leaves only three months after the consultation for preparation. By contrast, UKRI had a multi-year consultation and implementation timeline for their new OA policy. NIH should extend the timeline to allow institutions and researchers to adapt.
  
• Extended consultation. Given the potential scale of impact, NIH should allow more time to gather feedback, engage stakeholders, and avoid confusion among researchers.
  
• Systemic reform. The fundamental challenge is not APC pricing but the academic credit system. Reforming research assessment, such as through initiatives by the National Academies, would be more effective at controlling costs and incentivizing openness.
  

Conclusion: NIH’s goal to maximize taxpayer value will not be met by APC caps. A more effective approach is to support systemic reform in research assessment, enable collective funding mechanisms, and promote publishing practices aligned with open science, research integrity and transparency. PLOS urges NIH to adopt policies that advance the mission of open science for all, ensuring taxpayer-funded research is widely accessible, equitable, and maximally beneficial to society. For more reflections, see the PLOS Blog. 

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is having an outsized influence on many industries, including scholarly publishing. The theme for this year’s Peer Review Week explores how we can rethink Peer Review in the AI Era. Publishers like PLOS are carefully considering how AI can enhance peer review without undermining research integrity.

The current standard in the scholarly publishing community is that authors may use generative AI (genAI) in preparing submissions, (with some caveats; see this COPE position statement and the PLOS policy). However, there are tight reins on AI use in peer review. Many journal policies specify that editors and reviewers must not upload submission content to genAI tools, and some either forbid genAI use in peer review altogether (e.g. Science), or allow select AI use cases, such as to translate or edit one’s own review comments (e.g. PLOS, Wiley).

Why this different standard? Policies restricting or prohibiting AI in peer review mitigate risks that genAI use by editors or reviewers could introduce, such as:

• Breach of confidentiality for unpublished content and sensitive data
• Loss of rigor and specificity in the assessment process
• Fraudulent misrepresentation of genAI outputs and peer review contributors
• Enablement & acceleration of peer review manipulation (e.g. by paper mills)

It may then seem paradoxical or even hypocritical that journals and publishers are exploring options for in-house AI usage in peer review. A key difference between in-house use (by journal staff) and external use (by academic editors and reviewers) is that a journal can deploy in-house tools in a controlled technology environment that protects data security, so that confidential content is not ingested into training sets which affect other users’ outputs.  

When data security measures are in place, AI can help improve the consistency with which journals enforce their standards and policies. For example, AI can detect and produce review reports querying issues such as incomplete, unverifiable, or retracted references, problematic statistical analyses, and non-adherence to data availability and pre-registration requirements. Human reviewers are inconsistent in the degree to which they address these types of issues which can directly impact integrity and reproducibility.

Although there are several good use cases for AI in supporting peer review, humans remain indispensable for providing rigorous content assessment. Whereas genAI detects and averages preexisting content, humans innovate and evaluate. We introduce new ideas and perspectives, bring creativity, curiosity, and intellect, and are able to synthesize, contextualize, interpret, and critique based on knowledge that spans multiple domains. In short, machines are a long way from being able to replicate human cognition, and so humans can engage in peer review and scientific discourse in a way that machines cannot. In practical terms, this means that people can identify issues that would not be evident to a machine reader or algorithm, and which can be crucial to scientific validity and integrity.

With that said, moving toward a hybrid human+AI peer review model could mitigate known pain points in peer review, including the heavy burden peer review places on academics and longer-than-ideal peer review timings. If AI covers technical aspects of the assessment, then perhaps we can use fewer reviewers to cover aspects of peer review that require uniquely human executive functioning capabilities. As a proof-of-concept for this model, a talk at the 2025 Peer Review Congress discussed a ‘Fast Track’ peer review offering by NEJM AI in which decisions are issued within one week of submission based only on the editors’ evaluation of the manuscript and two AI-generated reviews.

While one-week turnaround times are enticing, there are several reasons to include at least two human experts in peer review, whether as editors and/or reviewers. Authors and articles benefit from evaluations reflecting different (human) perspectives; it often requires multiple individuals to cover the subject matter and methodological expertise needed for a rigorous assessment. Importantly, having two or more humans involved in peer review also increases the likelihood that any major scientific and integrity issues will be identified, and lends greater credibility overall to publications and journals. It also affords a degree of protection for authors, journals, and the broader community against issues that could compromise peer review, such as personal biases, competing interests, poor quality assessments, and unethical (mis)use of peer review for personal gain. 

The AI era may be here to stay, and publishers and researchers will continue to explore its uses, but caution and careful consideration must be given in every step of the peer review process. And, at the end of the day, it will never replace a person’s expertise and judgement.

Further Reading:

• Policy-based approaches to combat large-scale integrity threats
• A scientific future shared with AI
• NIH position on AI use in peer
• From Detection to Disclosure — Key Takeaways on AI Ethics from COPE’s Forum

The post The promise and perils of AI use in peer review appeared first on The Official PLOS Blog.

The study is co-authored by our own Director of Open Research Solutions, Iain Hrynaszkiewicz, Open Research Manager, Lauren Cadwallader and Professor Giovanni Colavizza of the University of Copenhagen. 

In our work to advance open science, we’re committed to driving meaningful change by ensuring the solutions we design and promote are useful to the communities we serve. Open Science Indicators are one tool we’ve developed to help us to measure trends and progress in open science behaviors, but we also take on deeper investigations to understand the needs, motivations, and impact of open science practices. 

France has a progressive national policy on open science and has been a leader in aspects of monitoring that policy. This made for a promising cohort to measure the effects of open science practices

The following announcement was published by the The French Committee for Open Science highlighting the importance of these findings to stakeholders in the region. Read the original post here.

__________________________________________________________________________

For the first time on a scale of a country, France, a study demonstrates that Open Science could increase the chances for researchers to be cited

The authors chose to study France, a leading country in monitoring Open Science, and to use data from the French Open Science Monitor, that covers the entire country since 2018.

Public policies promoting open science aim to develop the circulation of knowledge across all levels of society. They seek to strengthen the international influence of academic research while promoting transparency, cumulative growth and reproducibility in research. By sharing research methods, materials and results, these policies encourage the wider dissemination of knowledge beyond the academic world to society, communities and the economic sector. These policies are implemented at the global (UNESCO), continental (European Union) and national (France) levels.

Measuring the impact of these open science policies is a major challenge in assessing the consequences of public policies and adapting future initiatives. Several studies have already established the impact in terms of citations for open science practices, although these studies often remain domain-specific.

For the first time, an international research team has conducted a comprehensive study covering an entire country and all disciplines. The authors, Giovanni Colavizza (Denmark), Lauren Cadwallader (United States) and Iain Hrynaszkiewicz (United States), chose to study France, a leading country in monitoring Open Science, and to use data from the French Open Science Monitor, that covers the entire country since 2018.

The study covers a considerable corpus of over 500,000 scientific articles. It reveals that each open science practice seems to be associated with an increase of the number of citations of the articles concerned. The results show that:

• An article published in open access is linked to 8.6% increase in citations compared to an article that is not open access.
• An article sharing source code is linked to 13.5% increase in citations.
• An article sharing data is linked to 14.3% increase in citations.
• An article published as a preprint is linked to 19% increase in citations.

These results vary considerably across disciplines and represent the average of diverse specific situations. For example, in medical research, data sharing is associated with a 34.9% increase in citations. In basic biology, publishing a preprint is associated with a 25.3% increase in citations. In the social sciences, sharing code related to a publication is associated with a 38% increase in citations.

This study does not close the book on open science research. The impact of open science needs to be assessed in many other fields, particularly beyond the academic world. However, it is a crucial first step and offers promising results regarding the academic impact of open science practices.

Find out more:

•         The study published as a preprint

•         The French Open Science Monitor

•         National open science policy in France

•         Ouvrirlascience.fr

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Peer review plays a foundational role in shaping scientific knowledge, but often isn’t the focus when we talk about innovation in research communication. We believe openness throughout the research process, including during peer review, is important to not only increase transparency, but to support more flexible and integrated forms of knowledge sharing.

Open peer review comes in different forms such as signed reviews, publicly available peer review reports and ways of opening the peer review process to a wider pool of experts. This Peer Review Week we take a look back at our long-standing commitment to make the peer review process more transparent and a new initiative that brings open peer review to preprints for authors submitting to PLOS Global Public Health.

Linking peer review to preprints 

In a new pilot supported by the Gates Foundation, authors submitting to PLOS Global Public Health can now opt in to have their peer review comments posted to their preprint as their manuscript undergoes formal evaluation. This initiative brings together two key strands of our open science strategy: encouraging preprint sharing and promoting transparent peer review.

Why does this matter? While many publishers support preprints and/or offer some form of transparent peer review, linking official peer reviewer reports to preprints is a novel approach to opening up more of the research publishing process.

Preprints offer an important pathway  for rapid dissemination, especially in fields like global health where timely access to research can have real-world impact. By linking peer review comments to preprints, we’re enabling readers to benefit from expert evaluations earlier in the research lifecycle. This approach also signals when a preprint has undergone peer review, enhancing trust and surfacing the full scholarly conversation around the work.

We’re also eager to learn from this pilot: What motivates authors to share their reviews? How do readers engage with peer-reviewed preprints? The answers will help shape the future of how we can support open science beyond the traditional article format.

Our continuing efforts to open peer review

Open peer review is essential to a healthy research ecosystem. It promotes accountability and reduces potential for bias, by making the evaluation process visible. It supports integrity by surfacing the expert assessment that underpins the evaluation of research. 

We are continually innovating to understand how we can make peer review more open, efficient, and recognized for its importance. In 2019, we launched Published Peer Review History, allowing authors to opt in to share their complete peer review reports combining reviewer comments and editorial decisions alongside their published articles. We’ve long supported reviewers who wish to sign their reviews, and integrate with tools like ORCID to enable reviewer credit even for anonymous reviews. We encourage editors to consider preprint comments as part of the peer review process across all our journals. 

PLOS has partnered with Review Commons since 2020 to provide a journal-agnostic, high-quality peer review service for authors of preprints in bioRxiv and medRxiv who wish to submit to our life sciences journals. Earlier this year we also announced a new partnership between PLOS Biology and MetaROR to consider reviews that accompany submissions of metaresearch that have already been evaluated on the site.This partnership builds on the journal’s collaboration with PCI-Registered Reports and other PCI communities, as well as its existing commitment to portable peer review, which allows authors to submit reviews from previous submissions to other journals to expedite editorial decisions and reduce strain on the reviewer pool.

These practices reflect our belief that transparency in peer review fosters trust, accountability, efficiency, and a richer scholarly dialogue. But openness is a journey, not a destination. As the means of sharing research evolves beyond the article, so too must our approaches to peer review. As we continue to innovate, we remain committed to listening and learning from researchers, maintaining open dialogue to ensure that we build solutions that advance open science while remaining tailored to the needs of our authors and contributors.

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As part of this work, we recently updated the standards against which we evaluate research using publicly available health and social science databases. When conducted rigorously, these studies are important for understanding prevalence and generating hypotheses for future projects. However, the datasets can also be misused for research that lacks a legitimate research question and does not make a contribution to the literature. Data dredging and “salami slicing” – whereby studies with closely related research questions, methods and/or results are divided into separate manuscripts to boost publication output – are particular concerns with these studies. 

To address these concerns, journal teams are working in concert with Academic Editors to ensure that all submissions meet common standards around the research question and the age of the dataset. In addition, per our long-standing guidelines, authors who wish to publish their observational studies in any PLOS journal should submit a STROBE checklist alongside their manuscript. 

Thank you for being part of the PLOS community and supporting our efforts to publish research that is robust, reliable and accessible to all.

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SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Today, PLOS Biology announced a new agreement with the Research on Research Institute (RoRI) and the Association for Interdisciplinary Meta-Research and Open Science (AIMOS) to become a partner journal with MetaROR (MetaResearch Open Review), a recently launched platform designed to improve the dissemination and evaluation of meta-research. As part of the agreement, PLOS Biology will formally consider meta-research articles that are peer-reviewed on the MetaROR platform, collaborating with RoRI and AIMOS to improve the transparency of peer review in the field of meta-research.

This agreement with MetaROR aligns with PLOS’ mission of driving open science forward with meaningful change in research publishing practice. MetaROR’s publish-review-curate model enables authors to use the review reports obtained from MetaROR’s peer-review process to approach different journals, if needed, preventing futile cycles of peer review and unnecessary loss of time. This fully aligns with PLOS Biology’s approach to publication. 

“As a strong advocate for meta-research, we are pleased to become a partner journal of MetaROR, which will enable us to support this community while advancing Open Science practice,” said Nonia Pariente, Editor-in-Chief, PLOS Biology. “PLOS Biology is committed to using pre-existing reviewer reports wherever possible, and so partnering with MetaROR is a natural next step for us.”

“PLOS Biology is among the first journals to partner with MetaROR,” said Ludo Waltman, Co-Editor-in-Chief of MetaROR and Co-Chair of RoRI. “We are grateful for PLOS’ confidence in MetaROR’s publish-review-curate model. We look forward to working with PLOS Biology to innovate scientific publishing practices.”

About Public Library of Science (PLOS)

PLOS is a non-profit organization on a mission to drive open science forward with measurable, meaningful change in research publishing, policy, and practice. We believe in a better future where science is open to all, for all. 

About PLOS Biology

PLOS Biology is a leading journal in the life sciences, which champions inclusive, high-impact research across all disciplines—from molecules to ecosystems. PLOS Biology offers innovative publication formats; rigorous, transparent and accountable decision-making; and collaborative editorial support that is focused on helping researchers publish their best work. 

About the Research on Research Institute (RoRI)

RoRI was founded in 2019 with a mission to accelerate transformative research on research systems, cultures and decision-making. 

About the Association of Interdisciplinary Meta-Research and Open Science (AIMOS)

The mission of AIMOS is to improve the quality of scientific research. AIMOS brings together and supports researchers working in the interdisciplinary field of meta-research to explore possible improvements and promote effective interventions. 

About MetaROR

MetaROR (MetaResearch Open Review) is a community initiative led jointly by RoRI and AIMOS. It provides a platform that leverages the publish–review-curate model to improve the dissemination and evaluation of metaresearch.

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That’s exactly where the Responsible Research in Action unconference steps in.

Built on the idea that the most meaningful conversations often happen over coffee or in the corridors between sessions, unconferences flip the script of traditional events—putting informal exchange, collaboration, and peer-driven problem-solving at the center.

Registration is open for this event, which takes place in Berlin from September 22–24, 2025, the Responsible Research in Action unconference will bring together not just researchers, but a diverse mix of funders, publishers, institutional leaders, patient representatives, and other key stakeholders. Participants will work side by side to co-create outputs and actionable solutions for more responsible, inclusive, and effective research practices.

The setting is equally conducive to bold thinking. Conversations will spill over from working sessions into shared meals and informal exchanges—including a networking dinner held among towering fossils in the iconic dinosaur hall of Berlin’s Natural History Museum. In a space that holds the traces of deep time and evolution, participants will reflect on what kind of research culture they want to help shape for the future—and how we might get there together.

Because lasting change requires more than good ideas. It requires shared ownership, mutual understanding, and the kind of ecosystem-wide collaboration that this unconference aims to spark.

At the heart of the unconference are ten projects, selected through a global open call by our international program committee—comprising experts from diverse research backgrounds, including representatives from PLOS. The selected projects span a range of key challenges in research culture. Three major themes guide this year’s work:

Reproducibility

Several projects focus on improving reproducibility. This includes pilot testing a checklist of core reproducibility checks, collaboratively developing a reporting guideline for reproducibility studies, and co-creating stakeholder-specific roadmaps to improve the uptake of pre-registration and reporting guidelines in biomedical research.

Research assessment reform

Two projects address the challenge of how we evaluate research and researchers. One group will create a guide to help researchers and administrators address common objections to research assessment reform, based on existing evidence. The second group will focus on misaligned incentives. Rewards and incentives for researchers often reward undesirable behaviors, while encouraging problematic ones. Participants will address this problem by collaboratively developing use cases to help academics apply a value-based evaluation framework across different disciplines and evaluation settings. 

Improving research culture

Participants will co-create a roadmap to implement Science Europe’s proposed vision for improving research culture, by participating in a highly interactive design-thinking workshop.

A full list of the ten projects, along with short video presentations, is available here.

Each project brings together participants from multiple sectors of the research landscape, ensuring solutions are co-created with the diverse perspectives they need to succeed—right from the start.

Whether you’re a researcher, funder, publisher, policymaker, or community representative, the Responsible Research in Action Unconference offers a unique chance to step out of your silo, join forces, and help shape a more trustworthy, transparent, and impactful research system.

Beyond producing concrete outputs, participants can expect to walk away with a new international network of peers committed to driving change across the research ecosystem. Refined skills in design thinking and how to drive behavior change, honed through dedicated workshops held during the event.

This event is hosted by the QUEST Center for Responsible Research at the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) at the Charité in Berlin, the Einstein Foundation Award for Promoting Quality in Research, and the EXCELScIOR ERA Chair at the University of Coimbra — with funding kindly provided by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Berlin University Alliance (BUA).

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