eLife’s new model: Submit your research

In January 2023, we switched to a new way of publishing where all papers reviewed by eLife are published as Reviewed Preprints.
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eLife’s mission has been to innovate and improve the way research is communicated. This led us, in October 2022, to announce a new model for publishing, which opened for submissions on January 31, 2023.

Originally published in January 2023 as an introduction to the new model, this blog was updated in February 2024 to reflect one year of submissions.

One year on

We have now been welcoming submissions through the model for a year, we took the opportunity to look back at some of the milestones we have hit during that time.

How does eLife’s model of publishing work?

When you submit your work to us, we assess whether we think we can provide reviews that will be of use to the scientific community.

If we send your research for peer review, your paper will go through:

  • Submission
  • Peer review
  • Publication as a Reviewed Preprint

Publishing a Reviewed Preprint

All papers that have been peer-reviewed will be published on the eLife website as Reviewed Preprints, accompanied by:

You will be able to include a response to the assessment and reviews, which will be published alongside the Reviewed Preprint.

What happens after your work is published as a Reviewed Preprint?

It’s up to you what you do with your paper next:

  • Revise and submit for publication as new version of your Reviewed Preprint
  • Declare your paper the Version of Record

Read more about our new process.

Why have we made these changes?

We believe this offers a more transparent, faster and fairer way to publish:

  • Following peer review all work will be published on our website, typically within a few weeks, eliminating the traditional accept/reject decision
  • Displaying public reviews and an eLife assessment alongside preprints shifts the focus away from journal titles, by providing valuable insights to help readers assess the research based on its own merits

Submit your work

To have your preprint reviewed as part of our new model, you can now submit here, or read our author guide for the latest information on submitting to eLife.

Find out more

If you’d like to learn more:

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We welcome comments and questions from researchers as well as other journals. Please annotate publicly on the article or contact us at hello [at] elifesciences [dot] org.

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