eLife has grown in many ways since it was launched 10 years ago.
We have many more Senior and Reviewing Editors than we did in 2012 and have published more than 10,000 articles in 18 different major subject areas.
Reforming the way that research is peer reviewed has also been a priority.
In the blog we explore some of the things that make eLife different, and the reasons why many researchers choose to send us their best work.
Working scientists make all editorial decisions
Every initial submission is assigned to a Senior Editor who decides, usually in consultation with one or more Reviewing Editors, whether it should be sent for peer review. The Reviewing Editor then recruits reviewers and oversees the peer-review process.
This means that your work is always in the hands of an Editor who is an active researcher.
Our peer-review process limits requests for extra work
Peer review is a collaborative process at eLife.
Once the final review report has been received, the Reviewing Editor and reviewers discuss their reviews with each other before reaching a decision on a manuscript.
Extra work is only requested if it is essential - overall, we aim to limit rounds of revisions and to help you publish your work faster.
We are committed to the reform of scientific publishing
To ensure that new scientific results are published as soon as possible, we only review papers that have been uploaded as preprints. Our submission system makes it straightforward for authors to upload their manuscript to bioRxiv and medRxiv whilst submitting to eLife.
Our review process also produces two outputs:
i) a decision letter with detailed feedback on the manuscript for the authors. This letter includes requests for revisions and suggestions for improvement.
ii) a ‘public review’ aimed at readers that discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript.
Read more about our “publish, then review” model of publishing.
We are committed to openness and innovation
eLife is an open-access journal and complies with all major funding agency requirements for immediate online access to the published results of their research grants.
Our Executable Research Article format allows authors to include live code, data and interactive figures in their published paper.
The Sciety website allows users to easily find peer reviews of preprints by eLife and other journals and organizations.
Ready to submit your next paper? Visit our author guide to find out how.
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We welcome comments/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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