Our ReproducibiliTea community consists of journal clubs organised and joined mainly by early career researchers who discuss journal articles on a regular basis, sometimes even resembling the act of post-publication reviewing. The content of these discussions is, however, typically kept private. We think that this is a missed opportunity to share ideas with the wider community, learn from each other, and contribute to the scholarly discourse. At the same time, we believe that ReproducibiliTea journal clubs that focus mainly on topics related to improving research practices, could also incorporate peer review training into their programmes.

Therefore, ReproducibiliTea and the UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN) decided to collaborate on a new project: Post-publication reviews by ReproducibiliTea journal clubs. Importantly, this project is not about finding errors in other researchers’ work, but rather about conducting constructive critical reviews, including highlighting the positive aspects of articles. With this project we aim to contribute to peer review training for early career researchers, stimulate critical thinking and discussion, encourage the sharing of results of the journal club discussions, and encourage early career researchers to contribute to scholarly discussions. Moreover, we also hope to foster a constructive and engaged post-publication culture and to make post-publication reviewing common practice. The journal clubs are free to decide whether and how to implement this project in their journal clubs: which article to review, how to conduct the review, how to write a commentary, if and where to publish. The steering committee provides resources to make it as easy as possible to start: a list with suggested review targets, peer review guidelines and recommendations, as well as a list of venues where commentaries could be published and a list of funding opportunities.

Because this project is still in its pilot phase (start January 2025), these documents are not publicly available yet. Interested in participating in the project? Send us an email: reproducibilitea@gmail.com and we will send you more information including resources.

Post-publication reviews


We believe this project is also a good opportunity to raise understanding of the current peer review system. Therefore, in October 2025, we organised two webinars on the topic of peer review and its diversification (more info). The video recordings are available on our YouTube channel.

We encourage journal clubs to discuss these topics further at their meetings. There are many thought-provoking readings on: peer review and its shortcomings (e.g., Byrne & Barnett, 2024; Cooke et al., 2024; Huber et al., 2022), self-correcting mechanisms in science (e.g., Hardwicke et al., 2022; Vazire & Holcombe, 2022) or on ideas to improve the peer review system: e.g., structured peer review (Malički, 2024), open continuous peer review (Nosek & Bar-Anan, 2012), diversifying peer review (Alves, 2025; Munafò et al., 2017), preprint review (Avissar-Whiting et al., 2024) and post-publication review (Barbour & Stell, 2020; O’Sullivan et al., 2021). Last but not least, we think it is vital to consider the topics of scholarly publishing (e.g., Casadevall et al., 2024), research quality (e.g., Langfeldt et al., 2020), and research assessment (e.g., Trueblood et al., 2025).

You can visit our app or OSF folder to explore related reading lists e.g., a reading list on peer review created by Mario Malički. Additional reading lists will be available soon.

Acknowledgments: We are very grateful for the ongoing feedback from the ReproducibiliTea community that helps us shape and improve this project. We would like to thank Marcus Munafò for his support.

References

  • Alves T. (2025). Diversification and decentralization of peer review: part 1—initiatives at the forefront. Sci Ed. 48. https://doi.org/10.36591/SE-4801-14
  • Avissar-Whiting, M., Belliard, F., Bertozzi, S. M., Brand, A., Brown, K., Clément-Stoneham, G., Dawson, S., Dey, G., Ecer, D., Edmunds, S. C., Farley, A., Fischer, T. D., Franko, M., Fraser, J. S., Funk, K., Ganier, C., Harrison, M., Hatch, A., Hazlett, H., Hindle, S., … Williams, M. (2024). Recommendations for accelerating open preprint peer review to improve the culture of science. PLoS biology, 22(2), e3002502. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002502
  • Barbour, B., & Stell, B. M. (2020). PubPeer: Scientific Assessment Without Metrics. In M. Biagioli, & A. Lippman (Eds.), Gaming the Metrics: Misconduct and Manipulation in Academic Research (pp.149-155). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Byrne, J. A., & Barnett, A. G. (2024). The research literature is an unsafe workplace. Accountability in Research, 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2024.2428205
  • Casadevall, A., Clark, L. F., & Fang, F. C. (2024). The changing roles of scientific journals. mBio, 15(11), e0251524. https://doi.org/10.1128/mbio.02515-24
  • Cooke, S. J., Young, N., Peiman, K. S., Roche, D. G., Clements, J. C., Kadykalo, A. N., … & Browman, H. I. (2024). A harm reduction approach to improving peer review by acknowledging its imperfections. Facets, 9(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1139/facets-2024-0102
  • Hardwicke, T. E., Thibault, R. T., Kosie, J. E., Tzavella, L., Bendixen, T., Handcock, S. A., … & Ioannidis, J. P. (2022). Post-publication critique at top-ranked journals across scientific disciplines: a cross-sectional assessment of policies and practice. Royal Society Open Science, 9(8), 220139. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.220139
  • Huber, J., Inoua, S., Kerschbamer, R., König-Kersting, C., Palan, S., & Smith, V. L. (2022). Nobel and novice: Author prominence affects peer review. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 119(41), e2205779119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2205779119
  • Langfeldt, L., Nedeva, M., Sörlin, S., & Thomas, D. A. (2020). Co-existing notions of research quality: A framework to study context-specific understandings of good research. Minerva, 58(1), 115-137. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-019-09385-2
  • Malički, M. (2024). Structure peer review to make it more robust. Nature, 628(8008), 476. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01101-9
  • Munafò, M. R., Nosek, B. A., Bishop, D. V., Button, K. S., Chambers, C. D., Percie du Sert, N., … & Ioannidis, J. P. (2017). A manifesto for reproducible science. Nature human behaviour, 1(1), 0021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-016-0021
  • Nosek, B. A., & Bar-Anan, Y. (2012). Scientific utopia: I. Opening scientific communication. Psychological Inquiry, 23(3), 217-243. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2012.692215
  • O’Sullivan, L., Ma, L., & Doran, P. (2021). An overview of post-publication peer review. Scholarly Assessment Reports, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.29024/sar.26
  • Trueblood, J. S., Allison, D. B., Field, S. M., Fishbach, A., Gaillard, S. D. M., Gigerenzer, G., Holmes, W. R., Lewandowsky, S., Matzke, D., Murphy, M. C., Musslick, S., Popov, V., Roskies, A. L., Ter Schure, J., & Teodorescu, A. R. (2025). The misalignment of incentives in academic publishing and implications for journal reform. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 122(5), e2401231121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2401231121
  • Vazire, S., & Holcombe, A. O. (2022). Where are the self-correcting mechanisms in science? Review of General Psychology, 26(2), 212–223. https://doi.org/10.1177/10892680211033912