Disclosing work prior to submission to a journal would benefit scientists seeking to be acknowledged for their discoveries.

Journals should publish referee reports and respond to well-founded concerns about papers after publication.

Open research practices bring significant benefits to researchers.

White principal investigators applying to the National Science Foundation are consistently funded at higher rates than most non-white PIs.

From July 2021 eLife will only review manuscripts already published as preprints, and will focus its editorial process on producing public reviews to be posted alongside the preprints.

eLife is changing its editorial process to emphasize public reviews and assessments of preprints by eliminating accept/reject decisions after peer review.

Redaction, intended to obscure personal and institutional identity, reduced the gap between Black vs. White applicants in simulated review of real NIH scientific grant applications, thus providing qualified support for double-blinded models of peer review.

Journals are exploring new approaches to peer review in order to reduce bias, increase transparency and respond to author preferences.

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.