The eLife Early-Career Advisory Group discusses eLife’s new peer review and publishing model, and how the whole process of scientific communication could be improved for the benefit of early-career researchers and the entire scientific community.

Generative artificial intelligence, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, can be used to analyze scientific texts with specialized constructions, including peer review reports.

As he prepares to step down as the Editor-in-Chief of eLife, Randy Schekman reflects on the origins of the journal, the eLife approach to peer review, and current challenges in scientific publishing.

An analysis of more than 70,000 journal articles, including 5405 that were first released as a preprint on bioRxiv, shows that articles with a preprint received 49% more attention and 36% more citations than articles without one.

eLife has introduced a new type of article–the Research Advance–that allows the authors of an eLife paper to publish results that build on their original research paper.

When assessing manuscripts eLife editors look for a combination of rigour and insight, along with results and ideas that make other researchers think differently about their subject.

Improving the peer review process, overcoming the limitations of print journals and providing open access to the very best work in the life and biomedical sciences are three highlights of our first year.