preprint from research square

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In Review at Nature journals

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• What is a preprint?
• What is In Review ?
• What do I need to know about opting in to In Review ?

How are preprints screened before posting through the In Review service?

What will happen to my preprint on research square if my manuscript is rejected from the journal i submitted to, how do i opt into in review when i transfer my manuscript to another journal, can i ask for my in review preprint to be removed from the research square platform.

• Is it possible to make peer reviewed versions of the article available through In Review at Nature journals?

What license is applied to the preprint and who holds copyright?

• Can I participate in In Review if I have already posted to a preprint server?
• How can I cite a preprint on the Research Square platform?

Can I discuss an In Review preprint with the media?

Are there any drawbacks to participating in in review , what is a preprint .

Preprints are defined as an author’s version of a research manuscript prior to formal peer review at a journal, which they deposit on a public server (as this article, “Preprints for the life sciences”, Science 352, 899-901; 2016, describes). 

For more information about Nature Portfolio policies on preprint sharing please see here . 

Many journals and publishers support sharing of preprints and do not consider preprints to be prior publication. You can find more information about journals’ policies on this Wikipedia page . 

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What is In Review ? 

In Review is a free preprint service from Research Square (of which Springer Nature is an investor) developed in partnership with Springer Nature (since October 2018) providing journal-integrated preprint sharing (for direct submissions of primary research manuscripts) and transparency into the peer review process for authors. By depositing a citable preprint on the Research Square platform, In Review allows authors to benefit from early sharing, including potential earlier citations, visibility and collaboration opportunities. Authors can demonstrate research progress to funders and others, and engage the wider community for comment and collaboration while their manuscript is under review. The wider research community will be able to discover new research with fully indexed search, comment on and help improve emerging science and gain insight into work currently under review at participating journals.

In Review at Nature journals – launched in June 2020 – provides journal-integrated preprint deposition on the Research Square platform and is currently available at Nature , the Nature research journals,  Nature Communications and the Communications journals. More information about what an author can expect when opting into In Review is provided below.

More information about In Review at Springer Nature can be found here .

What do I need to know about opting in to In Review ? 

• You must ensure that your co-authors agree to post a preprint and participate in In Review
• Whether you opt into In Review or not will have no effect on the editorial decisions and whether your manuscript is accepted.
• If your manuscript is sent out to review, it will be posted, after undergoing a set of quality control checks (see below for more information about screening), as a preprint “Under Review at Nature Portfolio” to In Review and with a DOI; it will now become a public and permanent part of the scholarly record. The community will be able to comment on, read, or cite your preprint.
• If your manuscript is not sent out to review, you will be given an opportunity to share your work as a preprint on the Research Square platform with a DOI (but not as part of the In Review initiative); it will now become a public and permanent part of the scholarly record. The community will be able to comment on, read, or cite your preprint.
• The peer review process including all editorial communications will continue through the peer review submission and manuscript tracking system. All queries about your manuscript’s peer review process should be directed to the journal.
• You will receive real time updates on the progress of your manuscript through a private peer review timeline in the Author Dashboard feature of In Review (eg, number of reviewers invited, reviewers agreed, receipt of reports). 
• If your manuscript is published, the preprint will be updated with a link to the published version.
• If your manuscript is rejected, all information corresponding to Nature Portfolio is removed from the preprint (see more information below).
• If your manuscript is rejected and transferred to another Nature journal, you can opt-in to In Review at the new journal by choosing to modify your manuscript on transfer.
• Springer Nature does not have a formal policy of incorporating comments received on preprints into a journal-mediated review process. Editors may, at their discretion, choose to take commenting through the Research Square platform into consideration. As with traditional review, they will rely on reviewers with field expertise in forming their decision.

All preprints that are posted through In Review undergo a set of quality control checks carried out by Research Square. These checks include affirming the presence of the following disclosures, where relevant. Authors submitting to Nature journals should include the ethics disclosures described below in their manuscript if they intend to opt-into In Review ; competing interests statements are collected upon submission through the manuscript submission system.

• Ethics approval for studies with human participants (consent to participate, and consent to publish)
• Ethics approval for animal studies
• Competing interest statements

In addition to these checks, our partner Research Square screens all preprints for pseudoscientific claims, biosecurity/dual use risk, unethical research practice, or other potential risks to human health, personal identifiers.

If you have opted into In Review and your article is rejected after peer review, all information corresponding to the Nature Portfolio imprint will be removed from the preprint, leaving only the original preprint on the Research Square platform. If you transfer to another Nature journal and opt-in to In Review again at the receiving journal, the Nature Portfolio imprint will be restored to the original preprint if the manuscript is sent out to review.

Many journal policies require declaration of posted preprints upon submission; you are free to send the link or share the DOI to the Research Square preprint of your manuscript to other journals as part of a future submission.

Any decision to opt into In Review at the original journal is not transferred to the receiving journal on transfer. You can opt into In Review at the receiving journal by choosing to modify your manuscript on transfer. You will receive a confirmation email with a link allowing you to access your submission at the new journal where you can opt into In Review prior to formally submitting to the new journal. If an In Review preprint was not posted following your submission to the original journal, your preprint will be posted as normal through the In Review service if your manuscript is sent out to review at the receiving journal. If your preprint was already posted as a result of opting into In Review at the original journal, the Nature Portfolio imprint and "Under Review" status will be restored to that preprint if your manuscript is sent out to review at the receiving journal.

No, preprints are a permanent part of the scholarly record and cannot be removed. By opting in to In Review an author agrees to their article being posted permanently and publicly as a preprint on the Research Square platform after submission. Information about Research Square policies can be found here .

Is it possible to make peer reviewed versions of the article available through In Review at Nature journals? 

No, only the author-submitted original version is made available as a preprint.

Authors retain full copyright for their work. Preprints posted on the Research Square platform via In Review receive a CC-BY 4.0 license which means that readers can reuse with appropriate attribution. More information about CC licenses can be found in these resource documents developed by an ASAPbio licensing taskforce .

Can I participate in In Review if I have already posted to a preprint server? 

Yes, you may participate if you have already posted to a preprint server. You should however be aware that having more than one version in different servers will fragment the usage counts and metrics provided on In Review and on other sites. It may also cause confusion for some readers about which version to use and cite.

How can I cite a preprint on the Research Square platform? 

You may cite your preprint (or another researchers’ preprint) in a Nature Portfolio journal using the citation format specified in the Nature Portfolio preprint policy . Once the preprint has been published in a journal, you may use the journal details in the citation.

For specific information about citing preprints posted on the Research Square platform, see Research Square policies here .

Per Nature Portfolio preprint policy , authors may provide clarification and context in response to inquiries from the media about their preprints, whether posted via In Review on the Research Square platform or on another platform. We advise authors to emphasize in these communications that the study has not been peer reviewed, and that the findings are provisional and could change. We also recommend that reporters indicate that the study is a preprint that has not been peer reviewed. 

While we encourage deposition of preprints, please note that it may not be possible for us to undertake media promotion of your work at publication as it may not be possible for us to apply a press embargo to your article. Further information on our pre-publicity policy is available here . This may also affect your institution’s press office. 

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My paper was rejected but was posted as a preprint with a DOI on Research Square. Can I now publish it in another journal?

My paper has been rejected recently but its content could be seen in the Research Square website. Why has this happened, and why did it also get a DOI link?

I asked and they answered:

Thank you for your message. Your work has been posted as a preprint on Research Square through the optional In Review preprint service offered by SpringerNature during journal submission. A preprint posted on the Research Square Platform is issued an official DOI and becomes a part of the citable scholarly literature. DOIs are intended to be permanent records and cannot be fully removed. Additionally, GoogleScholar, ResearchGate, EuropePMC and Crossref automatically index preprints, creating a permanent digital presence. In Review preprints remain posted regardless of the status at the journal. However, please note that the DOI also ensures that your work is properly linked to you, which helps avoid another individual claiming credit for your work. Finally, preprints are widely embraced by most major publishers, so a preprint is unlikely to negatively affect your publication chances. Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns.

So can I publish this work in another journal? Since it is not published? I don't understand why they have done that.

• publications

• 3 This needs details. Who rejected your paper? What did you agree to when you submitted this? –  Terry Loring Commented Aug 21, 2021 at 16:17
• A prestigious journal rejected it. Normal submission sir –  user145115 Commented Aug 21, 2021 at 17:40
• Was the journal in any way affiliated with research square? researchsquare.com/journals –  Terry Loring Commented Aug 21, 2021 at 18:53
• 2 even if affiliated why put there after rejection –  user145115 Commented Aug 22, 2021 at 13:29
• 7 Did you opt-in to the "optional In Review preprint service offered by SpringerNature"? It sounds like you did, or at least the journal thinks you did, and that would answer the "why has this happened" part of your question. –  Bryan Krause ♦ Commented Aug 24, 2021 at 18:23

3 Answers 3

Research Square seems to be an attempt by SpringerNature to make a profit by operating their own preprint server. I suggest that this will never work and the scientific community will not support their efforts.

The fact that your work appears in Research Square has no relation to your submission of the paper to another journal.

• 3 In addition I don’t see how assigning a DOI implies transfer of copyright and thus how it can imply the paper cannot be resubmitted, but IANAL… –  ZeroTheHero Commented Aug 24, 2021 at 18:41
• 1 @ZeroTheHero Several preprint services would have problems if it did. –  Anyon Commented Aug 24, 2021 at 19:58
• 3 Transfer of copyright is something that must be done explicitly. But some journals won't publish things that have appeared in preprint. This might be an attempt by Springer's parent to lock out papers from (some) other journals even for papers not accepted. –  Buffy Commented Aug 24, 2021 at 19:59
• 1 So, you mean I cannot submit in other journals? It is not like that. but the fact that they put this paper to public access is strange. –  user145115 Commented Aug 25, 2021 at 16:07

I suspect you opted into this :

To opt in, all co-authors agree to have their manuscript posted as a preprint with a CC-BY 4.0 license and a DOI, becoming a permanent part of the scholarly record. Read more about our editorial policies here.

If you were tricked into this by an odd website then perhaps these journals are not reputable after all.

I have never heard of having the submission to the journal combined with the posting of a preprint. I think these should be separate but I can see the appeal of combining this.

• 3 So I asked and they answered like above in the post. Can you please help me about my questions ? –  user145115 Commented Aug 24, 2021 at 14:43
• 1 No this is reputable journal from springer –  user145115 Commented Aug 27, 2021 at 18:48
• "I have never heard of having the submission to the journal combined with the posting of a preprint." This seems to be a recent thing. I have seen something similar a few months ago with a Wiley journal and a preprint service called Authorea. Never heard of this before, but the journal itself was definitely reputable. –  Snijderfrey Commented Dec 30, 2021 at 12:55

You are free to publish it anywhere. Nature has a tie up with research square only for preprint like Arxiv.

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Temporary DOI Registration Delay Due to Crossref downtime from 20:00 UTC Tuesday, 20 August 2024 and 20:00 UTC Wednesday, 21 August 2024 , DOI registration for new preprints may be delayed. DOIs will be registered promptly once service resumes. Thank you for your patience.

Research square company condemns russia's invasion of ukraine. read our statement →, a free journal-integrated preprint service.

In Review is a free journal-integrated preprint service offered to authors at participating journals. Authors can opt to have their manuscript automatically posted online in the form of a preprint with a DOI.

How To Participate

Authors have the option to opt in to In Review directly from the submission system of participating journals .

To opt in, all co-authors agree to have their manuscript posted as a preprint with a CC-BY 4.0 license and a DOI, becoming a permanent part of the scholarly record. Read more about our editorial policies here .

Once the submission has been sent out for review by the journal and has passed the Research Square prescreen , the manuscript is converted to HTML and posted on Research Square. It will be marked as part of In Review with the journal name to indicate it is under consideration at a participating journal. If the original manuscript file was uploaded as a PDF, only the abstract will be converted to HTML.

Preprints posted on Research Square receive a DOI making them a citable part of the scientific record. They are widely indexed by indexers such as Crossref and Google Scholar, giving them a permanent digital presence. Once preprints receive a DOI, we cannot remove these without cause.

Time to posting

Preprints are posted within 72 hours from when the manuscript has passed journal checks.

If the author would like to have their preprint posted before it is under review, they can elect to have it posted without the journal information listed on the preprint. The preprint will be posted within 48 hours from an author selecting this option. Once the journal checks are passed, the journal information will then appear on the preprint.

Peer review status and timeline

Events information that is displayed in the peer review timeline is received through Research Square’s direct integration with the manuscript tracking system of journals that participate in In Review .

Readers may notice that not all In Review preprints have a peer review timeline. Journals can participate in In Review with varying levels of transparency into the peer review process, and some journals opt to not share those details publicly on our preprints.

Preprints can have the public status Under Review , Under Revision , and Published . If the submission is accepted and published by the journal, the preprint will have a link to the published version on the journal website.

If the submission is rejected by the journal, the preprint will remain on Research Square, with the journal branding and peer review timeline removed.

Authors who would like their journal-submitted revision to be posted as a new preprint version can contact Research Square at [email protected] . This option is only available for manscripts that are actively under consideration at an open access In Review journal. Authors whose papers are no longer under consideration at an In Review journal can submit a revision by logging into their Research Square account.

Preprints posted through In Review may be indexed in Europe PMC, PubMed Central, Meta, and Researcher. All preprints are archived in Portico, a not-for-profit organization committed to the long-term preservation of scholarly content.

Participating Journals

Authors have the option to opt in to In Review directly from the submission system of participating journals. View all participating journals here .

" Surprisingly, we were contacted by different journals, colleagues and press/media-houses even before the final decision from the journal. My special personal thanks to Research Square for offering such an incredible circulation of our manuscript even before the actual publication. "

Pritam Sukul

University medicine rostock, have more questions.

More than 150,000 Preprints Now Posted on Research Square

Durham, NC, USA (May 26, 2022) -- Just nine months after reaching its 100,000 preprint milestone, Research Square now hosts more than 150,000 preprints.

The rapid growth of the Research Square preprint server is due in great part to its expansion of In Review : a journal-integrated service allowing researchers to post preprints of their manuscripts during article submission, supports journals across the Nature and BMC portfolios, as well as a host of other journals covering physics, engineering, plant and animal sciences, and more. 

Journal participation of Research Square’s In Review service expanded from fewer than 500 Springer Nature journals in February 2022 to more than 700 journals today . 

“Preprint posting continues to expand, and there are no signs that this trend will abate,” said Michele Avissar-Whiting, Editor in Chief of Research Square. “The expansion of In Review and other journal integrations among preprint servers is evidence that preprinting is slowly but surely becoming a natural stage in the publication process.” 

After a short screening process, authors submitting to participating In Review journals receive a digital object identifier (DOI), making their preprint immediately shareable and citable. Researchers and readers can also track editorial events through In Review as their papers advance through the journal’s peer review process. 

The rise in Research Square’s preprint submissions can also be attributed to the persistent/continuing use of preprinting among researchers.  

“More researchers across the life sciences, social sciences, and humanities are posting preprints to establish the primacy of their work, get cited earlier, and increase the visibility of their work,” said Gabriel Harp, Director of Product at Research Square Company. 

Learn more about preprints, preprinting, and Research square at www.researchsquare.com/researchers/preprints . 

About Research Square

Research Square, a division of Research Square Company, is an industry-leading preprint platform that accelerates the pace of global discovery and advancement by making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. Through its journal-integrated In Review service, innovative author dashboard, manuscript assessments, and research promotion services, Research Square enables researchers to establish the primacy of their work, share it with the broader community, build citations, and receive useful feedback much earlier in the publication process.

For more information on our platform and research promotion services, visit researchsquare.com . For more information on partnership opportunities visit company.researchsquare.com . 

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Preprints: Where to Post a Preprint

• Recommendations for Authors
• Where to Find Preprints
• Where to Post a Preprint
• How to Cite Preprints
• Journal and Funder Policies

Preprint Repositories

• arXiv arXiv is a preprint server for physics, math, computer sciences, quantitative biology and statistics.
• Authorea Authorea is a platform for publishing articles, data, figures and preprints.
• bioRxiv bioRxiv is a preprint server for biology.
• ChemRxiv ChemRxiv is a preprint repository for chemistry.
• Figshare Figshare is a repository where users can make all of their research outputs available in a citable, shareable and discoverable manner.
• medRxiv medRxiv is a preprint server for the health sciences.
• Open Science Framework (OSF) WUSTL is a member of OSF, a free, open platform to support your research and enable collaboration. OSF contains over two million preprints from a number of preprint repositories. Use your WUSTL Key to register for an account.
• Preprints.org Preprints is a platform dedicated to making early versions of research outputs permanently available and citable. Content on Preprints is not peer-reviewed and can receive feedback from readers
• Research Square Research Square contains over 25,000 preprints and allows authors to submit preprints and make edit prior to peer review in a journal.
• SciELO Preprints SciELO is an multidisciplinary international preprint server.
• SSRN SSRN is a multidisciplinary preprint server.

Guidance for Selecting a Preprint Repository

NIH offers guidance on selecting a repository for interim research products including preprints. 

The NIH strongly encourages interim research products arising from NIH funds to be deposited in repositories that ensure: 

• Content is findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable ( FAIR ).
• Interim product metadata, including usage statistics, are open, and easy to access by machines and people (e.g. via application program interfaces).
• Content is easy to use by machines and people. This access is both a function of permission (e.g. use of Creative Commons licenses) and technology (e.g. application program interfaces).
• Policies about plagiarism, competing interests, misconduct and other hallmarks of reputable scholarly publishing are rigorous and transparent.
• Records of changes to the product are maintained, and users have clear ways to cite different versions of the product.
• Links to the published version, if available.
• A robust archiving strategy that ensures long-term preservation and access. 

Source:  Reporting Preprints and Other Interim Research Products

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Guidance

Per International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE):  Authors who choose to post their work on a preprint server should choose one that clearly identifies preprints as not peer-reviewed work and includes disclosures of authors’ relationships and activities. 

Source:  Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals , December 2024.

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I opted into preprinting during my journal submission. Do I need to submit to Research Square directly?

Modified on Wed, 10 Apr at 9:06 PM

If you opted into the In Review preprint service during your journal submission, there is no need to submit your manuscript directly to us. We will receive your manuscript directly from the journal and post it as a preprint once it has passed journal checks.

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