Bringing Transparent Peer Review to the Physical Sciences and Beyond

Web of Science Group and IOP Publishing Enter New Partnership

LONDON, July 16, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Publons and ScholarOne, both part of the Web of Science Group (a Clarivate Analytics company), have entered into a new partnership with IOP Publishing to introduce the industry's first cross-publisher, scalable transparent peer review workflows across some of their leading journals in the physical sciences and beyond.

Transparent peer review shows the complete peer review process from initial review to final decision, and has gained popularity with authors, reviewers and editors alike in recent years.

In the first instance, IOP Publishing's transparent peer review service will be rolled out across JPhys Materials, Journal of Neural Engineering and Environmental Research Letters before the end of the year.

The new workflows ensure that, alongside the published article, readers can access a comprehensive peer review history, including reviewer reports, editor decision letters and authors' responses. Each of these elements is assigned its own digital object identifier (DOI), which helps readers easily reference and cite the peer review content. Transparency may increase the quality of the peer review process, and can also aid teaching of best practice in peer review.

The transparent peer review workflow complies with best-practice data privacy regulation, ensuring the individual preferences of authors, peer reviewers and journals are met.

Andrew Preston, Managing Director, Publons, said: "Our Global State of Peer Review report found that younger researchers in particular value increased transparency, but the actual process of transparent peer review is notoriously difficult for journals to implement. The existing workflows are often complex and entwined in every aspect of the publishing process. That's why we've introduced a new Publons solution, based on ScholarOne technology, which ensures that any publisher can implement transparent peer review at scale.

IOP Publishing is the first society publisher to adopt this solution, and we're very pleased to be partnering with them to deliver it."

Marc Gillett, Head of Publishing Operations, IOP Publishing, said: "With this pilot, we want to test the demand for transparent peer review in our communities by giving authors and reviewers the choice to display the review history of the article. It is part of our commitment to support open science and complements our current open data trial, which is encouraging and supporting authors to make their data available to readers, reviewers and editors.

"We are delighted to have partnered with the Web of Science Group to deliver a sophisticated transparent peer review workflow, and especially Publons who have done so much to increase recognition for reviewers."

Notes to editors

Media Contacts  
Amy Bourke-Waite  
Director of External Communications, Web of Science Group 
amy.bourkewaite@clarivate.com

Contact
Simon Davies
Senior PR Officer, IOP Publishing
Tel +44 (0)117 930 1110 or +44 (0)7720 496 716
Simon.Davies@iop.org

About IOP Publishing
IOP Publishing provides publications through which leading-edge scientific research is distributed worldwide. IOP Publishing is central to the Institute of Physics, a not-for-profit society. Any financial surplus earned by IOP Publishing goes to support science through the activities of the Institute. Go to http://ioppublishing.org or follow us @IOPPublishing.

About Publons 
Publons works with researchers, publishers and research institutions to speed up science and research by harnessing the power of peer review. Publons, founded in 2013 and now part of Clarivate Analytics, has offices in Wellington, New Zealand and London, UK.  For more information, please visit: publons.com |https://www.facebook.com/publons/    T: @publons 

About Web of Science Group
Web of Science Group organizes the world's research information to enable academia, corporations, publishers and governments accelerate the pace of research.  It is powered by the Web of Science – the world's largest publisher-neutral citation index and research intelligence platform. Its many well-known brands also include Converis, EndNote, Kopernio, Publons, ScholarOne and the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI).   The 'university' of Web of Science Group, ISI maintains the knowledge corpus upon which the index and related information and analytical content and services are built; it disseminates that knowledge externally through events, conferences and publications and it carries out research to sustain, extend and improve the knowledge base. The Web of Science Group is a Clarivate Analytics company.  www.webofsciencegroup.com. @webofscience

About Clarivate Analytics
Clarivate Analytics plc (NYSE: CCC; CCC.WS) is a global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation. Clarivate has built some of the most trusted brands across the innovation lifecycle, including the Web of Science, Cortellis, Derwent, CompuMark, MarkMonitor and Techstreet. Today, Clarivate is on a bold entrepreneurial mission to help our clients reduce the time from new ideas to life-changing innovations. For more information, please visit www.clarivate.com.   

Forward-Looking Statements 
This press release and oral statements made with respect to information contained in this release may contain forward-looking statements regarding Clarivate Analytics. Forward-looking statements provide Clarivate Analytics' current expectations or forecasts of future events and may include statements regarding anticipated synergies and other future expectations. These statements involve risks and uncertainties including factors outside of Clarivate Analytics' control that may cause actual results to differ materially. Clarivate Analytics undertakes no obligation to update or revise the statements made herein, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.   

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