Warum verwenden F&E-intensive Organisationen Vorab-Publikationen?

Preprints / Vorab-Publikationen sind im letzten Jahr besonders beliebt geworden und der Grund für den Aufschwung war nicht überraschend die Covid-19-Pandemie.

Erstens: Was ist eine Vorab-Publikation?

Eine Vorab-Publikation  – oder auch Preprint  – ist eine Vorabversion einer wissenschaftlichen Arbeit, die öffentlich zugänglich gemacht wird. Es geht typischerweise einem formellen Peer Review und/oder der Aufnahme in eine Zeitschrift voraus.

Wenn man sich den Publikationszyklus ansieht, findet man Vorab-Publikationen in der Regel in der Feedbackphase vor dem formellen Peer-Review. In den meisten Fällen stellen Autoren ihre Arbeit frühzeitig zur Verfügung, um informelles Feedback von Kollegen zu erhalten, um sicherzustellen, dass das Papier zur Einreichung bereit ist, und um einen Vorrang für Forschungsergebnisse zu schaffen. Manchmal wurden die so genannten Preprints zur Annahme in einer Zeitschrift eingereicht, manchmal nicht, und es gibt keine Garantie, dass ein Preprint von einer Zeitschrift akzeptiert und einem Peer-Review unterzogen wird. Vorab-Publikationen können auch einige Fördervoraussetzungen erfüllen, um die Ergebnisse offen zugänglich zu machen, auch wenn die Ergebnisse letztendlich nicht in einer Open-Access-Zeitschrift veröffentlicht werden.

Weiter geht es hier mit dem englischen Originalbeitrag, der zuerst im Blog unseres Mutterunternehmens Copyright Clearence Center veröffentlicht wurde.

COVID-19’s Impact on Preprints

As the world raced to share insights and provide therapies related to Covid-19, the result was a rapid increase in submissions to preprint servers and access to those preprints, which ultimately created a shift in how researchers are now publishing and interacting with preprints.

Right now, about half of all pandemic research is being published to preprints servers first.  Comparatively, this marks a significant shift from previous outbreaks of Ebola and Zika, where only 5 percent of research was published as a preprint.  During the SARS pandemic, 93 percent of research was published after the epidemic had ended. The shift during COVID is understandable given that research was needed in real time so researchers could get a vaccine created as quickly as possible.

Why are Preprints Used? What Our Research Shows

A lot of literature focuses on the pros and cons of preprints for authors and publishers, but there is little information about what preprints mean for researchers, especially in the commercial space. We gathered feedback from corporate R&D intensive organizations to determine how preprints are being used.

·         Access the earliest, most cutting-edge research available in real time

·         Early competitive research can help a company decide whether to pursue a new product line

·         Monitor how products are being used in the market

·         Access science that may never be published in a traditional journal

Has Covid-19 Changed Perceptions Around Preprints?

There are challenges when it comes to discerning the quality of non-peer reviewed information, as well as the ambiguity around copyright for commercial organizations. At the end of the day, there is overwhelming consensus that the final published article in a peer reviewed journal is preferred and should replace the preprint version. But, when speaking with researchers, we learned preprints can still play a significant role in early phase explorations.

Here are a few key takeaways from our conversations:

“Most literature search results I compile specifically exclude preprints since they are not yet peer-reviewed. However, I do provide a weekly update to support our COVID-19 Task Force and that one lists pre-prints because that body of literature is so dynamic.”

“Our thinking on pre-prints is evolving during the COVID crisis.  Science is accelerating, and we are finding that we need to pay more attention to articles that are being deposited in repositories ahead of publication.”

“Sometimes I need hard facts, other times it is useful just to find ideas and inspiration, and that can come from anywhere. If preprints were included I could make an informed decision about whether they were relevant to the query in hand and either flag them up or discard them.”