Peerage of Science and Pensoft expand collaboration

Peerage of Science and Pensoft have agreed to expand their collaboration. Pensoft, an independent academic publishing company founded in 1994 that now features a portfolio of 16 scientific journals, has been one of the early adopters of the peer review service.

All Pensoft journals are now integrated with Peerage of Science, bringing the journals into author's destination menu in Peerage of Science, and allowing their editors to make direct publishing offers to authors.

In Peerage of Science, multiple journals can use a single, community-driven peer review process. The organisation says the key goals of its service are to incentivise, measure and increase the quality of peer reviewing, empower scientists, as well as to make academic publishing more efficient by reducing the need for sequential submissions.

Pensoft was one of the early adopters of Peerage of Science, and it is now expanding the collaboration to cover all Pensoft journals. Authors now see 16 Pensoft journals in their destination menu, and they can simply click to journal logo to send the manuscript together with peer reviews to any of the journals. Editors of the journals can now access all ongoing peer review processes in Peerage of Science, and make direct publishing offers to authors.

Lyubomir Penev, founder and managing director at Pensoft, said: 'This collaboration works well both for us and for Peerage of Science, but most of all, it empowers the authors to set the deadlines for peer review and choose between publication offers. From the very inception of Pensoft we have striven to provide a fast, reliable and innovative service to our authors, and this new move is yet another building block in this vision.'

Among the integrated journals is a recent innovation in open access publishing, RIO Journal. In addition to research articles, RIO is expanding the scope of research outputs that can be formally published, including research proposals. Founded by Penev, Daniel Mietchen and Ross Mounce, RIO also introduces other features, such as a-la-carte choice for authors – they can choose which publisher services they need.
 
Janne-Tuomas Seppänen, co-founder of Peerage of Science, said he is pleased to see the expanding collaboration, particularly as it includes RIO: 'Pensoft is a special partner for us, because they were the first publisher to start an official collaboration with Peerage of Science years ago, when we had just launched. Also, Pensoft is in many ways a pioneering publisher seeking to make the world a better place for scientists, with initiatives like the ARPHA writing tool and the RIO Journal.

'I am particularly happy that Pensoft is continuing and expanding its support for our solutions for peer review, and brings more journals to the author's destination menu in Peerage of Science. We warmly welcome the 10 new titles and their editors, and look forward to a long and productive partnership.'