Updates and announcements from ASAPbio

Scientists sat around a table reviewing preprints with snacks inlcuding apples

Apply for support in converting your journal club to a preprint review club

Traaditional journal clubs are present in most labs and departments bringing together early career researchers to discuss and review a chosen article. These groups effectively perform peer review but often don’t share the comments with the authors. This year ASAPbio is launching a fund to support current journal clubs in performing (and sharing) peer reviews…

Composite image of individual smaller screens displaying different 2023 fellows waving to the camera

2023: Another successful year for the ASAPbio Fellows

In 2023 we progressed 38 people through the third installment of the ASAPbio Fellows program. Together this group participated in cohort calls to provide fundamental knowledge and training around preprints in addition to multiple projects, which we celebrate here.  Awareness of preprints in Africa The adoption of preprints across the globe has not been equitable,…

Plan S logo and text reading "towards responsible publishing: a proposal from cOAlition S" against an orange background with an image of a staircase

20 minute action: provide feedback on a funder proposal that would support preprints & open review

Take cOAlition S’s survey by the November 29th deadline to support a new model of publishing cOAlition S, an initiative of more than 2 dozen national funders and charitable organizations, has recently released the “Towards Responsible Publishing” proposal. The two key features of this proposal, as stated in an introductory blog post, are: 1. Authors,…

Spreading preprint awareness locally: growing the Hubs program

Culture change happens within communities. While virtual programs like the ASAPbio Fellows and Community calls link preprint enthusiasts across continents, nothing beats face-to-face interactions. So, as in-person events picked up earlier this year, we created a new program to support discussions about preprints; the ASAPbio Local Hubs program with three community leaders. Here, two of…

close up photograph of a diamond

EU council ‘no pay’ publishing model is realistic

This post originally appeared on Olivier Pourret’s blog and in Indonesian on Dasapta Erwin Irawan’s blog. Authors According to Katharine Sanderson, “publishing-industry representatives warn” that May’s EU Council call for a “no pay” academic publishing model is “unrealistic and lack[ing] detail”. However, the proposal is already being implemented via several approaches:  (i) Authors can publish their work…

grid of cartoon faces representing crowd review participants

Crowd preprint review is back! Sign up to participate in one of several groups led by ASAPbio Fellows 

Interested in honing your peer review skills while providing valuable feedback to preprint authors? Then join one of our preprint review crowds!  Following our two previous cycles of preprint review activities, we are thrilled to announce that ASAPbio will host more crowd preprint review activities in 2023. This year our crowd preprint review activities will…

Sharing negative results via a preprint: A conversation with Livia Songster

This is the third in our series of posts highlighting the winners of the ASAPbio competition ‘Make your negative result a preprint winner,’ which celebrates the value of using preprints to share negative and inconclusive scientific results. In this post, we hear from Livia Songster (University of California San Diego), the first author of the preprint ‘Woronin…

Sharing negative results via a preprint: a conversation with Lilya Andrianova

This is the second in our series of posts highlighting the winners of the ASAPbio competition ‘Make your negative result a preprint winner,’ which celebrate the value of using preprints to share negative and inconclusive scientific results. In this post, we hear from Lilya Andrianova (University of Exeter Medical School & University of Glasgow), the first author…

Midjourney-generated image of scientists talking holding papers with speech bubbles above them

“Advancing the Culture of Peer Review with Preprints” – a Call to Action

Today, we’re happy to share a preprint written by a subset of the participants in December’s Recognizing Preprint Peer Review Meeting hosted by ASAPbio, HHMI and EMBO. It’s an exciting time for preprint review, with new services, models, and policies providing the foundation for a growing ecosystem. At the same time, the diversity in the…

midjourney-generated illustration of an open book with flasks and biologically-themed patterns springing from it

ASAPbio’s response to the NIH Plan to Enhance Public Access

Last month, the US NIH released a Request for Information (RFI) for feedback on its planned implementation of last year’s White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) directive to make all US federally-funded research immediately publicly accessible.  In addition to ensuring that “publications resulting from NIH-supported research are made available in PMC without…

Announcing the winners of the ‘Make your negative result a preprint winner’ competition

We are pleased to announce the winners of the ASAPbio competition ‘Make your negative result a preprint winner’, which aimed to highlight the value of sharing negative and inconclusive scientific results via preprints. We know that science advances through a persistent exploration of research questions and approaches, and that this brings with it the fact…

ASAPbio preprint policy toolkit for funders

Preprints help to improve the overall quality, integrity and reproducibility of research outputs, as highlighted in UNESCO’s recommendations on open science. Preprint adoption is increasing across scientific disciplines and geographies thanks to the involvement of multiple players, including researchers, publishers, institutions, societies, and funders. Funders can significantly influence, and benefit from, the preprint landscape by…