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. 2021 Oct 12;9:e12245. doi: 10.7717/peerj.12245

Table 1. Possible solutions to reduce publication delay for studies of conservation actions.

Possible solutions Conservation actor(s) Delay components
Conservation scientists and practitioners Journals and publishers Funders and organisations Write-up delay Re-submission delay Destination journal delay
Collaboration between scientists and practitioners to design experiments and publish results. Research organisations sometimes have time and money to write up and publish results.
Buddy schemes match up individuals with others with time and knowledge suitable for analysing, reviewing and writing up results.
Less strict formatting and structure requirements for initial submission.
Journals produce article templates (e.g., as for Conservation Evidence Journal and Oryx).
Journals produce article types better suited for the rapid publication of tests of interventions (e.g., Research Notes, ‘Evidence’ articles in Conservation Science and Practice, Conservation Evidence Journal).
Provide assistance to individuals not writing in their first language to help with addressing reviewer’s comments, editing and write-up (e.g., copy-editing assistance provided by Oryx).
Offer pre-registration or publication of registered reports to help speed up analyses and write-up when authors finish agreed methods of data collection (Parker, Fraser & Nakagawa, 2019).
Include funding, and time for writing up, in budgets.
Include and accept published papers as project outcomes instead of reports.
Build a culture that values the creation of evidence-base and timely dissemination of results through training in evidence-based methods, and scientific write up.
Provide access to clear, standardised guidelines for writing up scientific articles. e.g., Oryx Writing for Conservation Guide (Oryx, 2019).
Authors “calibrate” submissions to journals best suited to their work (Vosshall, 2012) to avoid lengthy rejections and resubmissions-e.g., using Journal/Author Name Estimator (JANE: https://jane.biosemantics.org/).
Authors publish pre-prints online (e.g., BioRxiv, EcoEvoRxiv, SocRxiv) when the work has been submitted to a journal. However, caution should be taken if disseminating results due to the lack of peer-review, which is often vital for ensuring the quality and reliability of published findings.
Authors pre-register study designs and/or analyses before undertaking data collection where possible (or submit a registered report). This could help plan for subsequent analysis and write-up, reduce the likelihood of rejection and the need for lengthy resubmissions and revisions due to poor quality study design or analyses (Parker, Fraser & Nakagawa, 2019).
Adoption of one submission models (e.g., ‘Peer Community In’) that provide peer-review that multiple publishers can access, and link papers with interested journals who use other’s reviews to guide their decisions. One such initiative, Peerage of Science, did not receive sufficient interest or support from journals and authors—it has recently been abandoned according to its founders (J Kotiaho 2021, personal communication, 4th May).
Reduce unnecessary effort required for initial submissionse.g., universal formatting and styles for submissions, word counts, flexibility in section layouts, pre-submission enquiries etc.
Reduce time spent in unnecessary rounds of review through quick rejections, and decisive editorial decisions.
Incentivise peer review e.g., payments or free subscription, awards for fast, high-quality reviews (Nguyen et al., 2015), or giving reviewer’s their own DOI (if reviews are transparent; Stern & O’Shea, 2019).
Allow authors to submit to multiple journals simultaneously to increase competition between journals to reduce publication delay (Torgerson et al., 2005).
Consider providing strict deadlines to peer reviewers to promote timely returns of reviews. Encourage individuals to provide recommendations for other reviewers if they are not able to meet deadlines.
Consider consulting a wider pool of reviewers, and training graduate students in peer review (Nguyen et al., 2015).
Offer pre-registration or publication of registered reports to help the likelihood of rejection and the need for lengthy resubmissions and revisions due to poor quality study design or analyses (Parker, Fraser & Nakagawa, 2019).
In time-critical cases, use preliminary peer-review before submission where journals pre-identify referees in advance (e.g., fast-tracked papers in Biological Conservation; Biological Conservation, 2021) and/or send drafts to reviewers pre-review to allow reviewers to prepare comments (Sutherland & Lythgoe, 2020).
Once accepted, publish quickly (e.g., early view, online publishing) to reduce the time spent in publication limbo.
Embrace new initiatives of transparent peer-review to: share reviews between potential publishers, identify papers of interest and quickly publish the already reviewed articles.
Move to a peer-review system that is “publish first, curate second” through strengthening and increasing the use of preprint servers, allowing open, transparent peer-review, and the development of curation journals to select those articles of interest for specific audiences (Stern & O’Shea, 2019). This has been realised during the COVID-19 pandemic with the creation of RR:C19 a journal that rapidly and transparently reviews and curates pre-prints (Dhar & Brand, 2020).
Consider the use of accept/reject submission models where articles are reviewed and either accepted or rejected at the outset. Such models are used in other disciplines (e.g., Economic inquiry, Journal of Labour Research).
Promote the use of platforms and journals that have taken steps to reduce publication delay in the publication and peer-review process.
Select platforms and journals that have taken steps to reduce publication delay in the publication and peer-review process. Many journals publish time from submission to acceptance on their websites, and resources exist to compare publication times across journals—see Table S14 and a blog post by Himmelstein (2016) from which this was derived.
Consider the use of submission models (such as ‘Peer Community In’ or ‘Octopus’) that provide transparent peer-review and recommendation of pre-prints or initial submissions, but without the requirement for, although compatible with, journal publication.