Peer Community In

What Peer Community In does

Peer Community In (PCI) is a French non-profit scientific association founded in 2017 by three senior INRAE scientists (Denis Bourguet, Benoit Facon, and Thomas Guillemaud) that provides free, community-driven peer review and recommendation of preprints across 21 thematic scientific fields. The platform operates through volunteer "recommenders" (functionally equivalent to journal associate editors) and reviewers drawn from a community of 2,800+ researchers worldwide; 2,228 preprints have been submitted and 1,051 recommended since inception. Recommended preprints receive citable DOI-bearing recommendations and can be published free of charge in the diamond open-access Peer Community Journal (PCJ, launched November 2021; 532 articles to date, indexed in Web of Science and Scopus) or submitted to a network of 123+ PCI-friendly journals that fast-track or accept without further review.

The core technology is a web-based platform built on the web2py framework in Python 3, with a clonal architecture designed for scalability across thematic communities and open-source code hosted on GitHub. PCI integrates with major preprint repositories — bioRxiv, HAL, and DIGITAL-CSIC — via the COAR Notify protocol for direct submission and reciprocal display of recommendations. The organization mandates deposit of data, code, and scripts in open repositories (Zenodo, Dryad, institutional archives) with DOIs for reproducibility.

Revenue is generated exclusively through institutional donations from universities, libraries, and research organizations on a "pay what you can" basis, supplemented by in-kind salary contributions from INRAE and CNRS. In 2025, PCI received €301K from 99 institutional donors plus €215K in in-kind salaries, totaling €516K in resources — up from ~€50K in 2019. The diamond open-access model means no fees are charged to authors, readers, reviewers, or recommenders, with cost per recommended preprint at €718 (or €198 excluding in-kind) versus ~€3,000 for average STM publication.

Name

Peer Community In

Legal name

Peer Community In

Website

https://peercommunityin.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Peer Community In (PCI) is a French non-profit scientific organization offering free, community-driven peer review of preprints across 21 thematic fields, serving academic researchers and funded by institutional donations from 240+ universities, libraries, and research organizations worldwide.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Open Access Scientific Publishing

NAICS

Libraries and Archives (51921), Software Publishers (513210)

akta.pro primary industry

Open Access Scholarly Journals & Monographs (EDAGAFAJ)

akta.pro secondary industry

Conference Proceedings & Research Reports Publishing (EDAGAFAL)

Keywords

• Open access publishing
• Preprint peer review
• Scholarly communication
• Diamond open access
• Scientific preprint review

Headquarters

HQ city

France

HQ country

France

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Institutional Donations and Sponsorships: PCI is funded by a distributed network of universities, research institutions, and libraries. In 2025, PCI received 301 K€ from 99 public subventions. Institutions provide between €150 and €10,000 annually on a 'pay what you can' basis. Donors receive recognition through display of their logo on PCI websites.
2. In-Kind Donations: INRAE provides salaries for two researchers (50% each) and one engineer (90%) as in-kind donations. CNRS temporarily appointed a web developer part-time. Volunteer workers format articles for PCJ. In 2025, in-kind donations totaled approximately 215 K€.
3. Free Diamond Open Access Model: Both PCI and Peer Community Journal are completely free for authors and readers. No Article Processing Charges (APCs) are collected. Revenue comes entirely from institutional support, not from authors or readers.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Peer Community In (PCI) operates 21 thematic communities that perform rigorous, free, open peer review of scientific preprints deposited in repositories such as bioRxiv, HAL, and arXiv. Articles recommended by PCI communities are then published at no cost to authors or readers in the diamond open access Peer Community Journal (PCJ) launched in November 2021.

Product overview

Peer Community In (PCI) is a non-profit scientific organisation offering a free, community-driven peer-review and recommendation service for preprints. The core platform coordinates 21 thematic PCIs (e.g., PCI Ecology, PCI Evolutionary Biology, PCI Psychology, PCI Plants) that evaluate preprints through open peer review, producing citable recommendations with DOIs. Authors of recommended preprints can publish in the diamond open-access Peer Community Journal (PCJ), submit to 123+ PCI-friendly journals, or pursue any other publication path. PCI also offers a dedicated PCI Registered Reports track for two-stage pre-study and post-study peer review of registered reports. Supporting resources include reviewer and recommender guides, a data sharing policy, and a quarterly PCI Webinar Series.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Peer Community In (PCI) thematic communities A network of 21 free, open peer review communities spanning biology, ecology, genetics, evolutionary science, computer science, and social sciences. Each thematic community reviews preprints deposited in repositories (such as bioRxiv, HAL, arXiv) and may recommend them for publication in the Peer Community Journal or in partner journals (PLOS, eLife, PeerJ, etc.) without re-review.
• Peer Community Journal (PCJ) A diamond open access journal launched in November 2021 that publishes, free of charge to authors and readers, articles recommended by the PCI thematic communities. It serves as a recognized citable venue for recommended preprints and operates under a non-profit, community-governed editorial model.

Quantifiable outcome

• Cost savings of 2,282€-2,802€ per recommended preprint compared to traditional publishing
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers11 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration7 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Six partnerships are on record, tiered core and major.

• INRAE (French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerINRAE is where PCI was founded by Denis Bourguet, Benoit Facon, and Thomas Guillemaud. The organization provides in-kind support including salaries for two researchers (50% each) and one engineer (90%) who manage PCI and PCJ. PCI is encouraged and supported by INRAE.
• CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCNRS has temporarily appointed a web developer to work part-time for PCI. CNRS Écologie & Environnement provides financial support of over 10,000€ annually.
• bioRxivmajorTechnology or IntegrationbioRxiv is interoperable with PCI Ecology, allowing direct preprint submission from bioRxiv to PCI Ecology. bioRxiv displays links to PCI reviews and recommendations for recommended preprints through the TRiP project.
• HAL (French national open archive)majorTechnology or IntegrationHAL is interoperable with PCI, allowing authors to make a pre-submission to their chosen PCI directly from HAL. If the preprint is recommended, HAL displays that a PCI has peer-reviewed and recommended it.
• DIGITAL.CSIC (Spanish national research digital repository)majorTechnology or IntegrationDIGITAL.CSIC is interoperable with PCI, allowing direct preprint submission. If the preprint is recommended, DIGITAL.CSIC indicates that a PCI has peer-reviewed and recommended it.
• COAR (Confederation of Open Access Repositories)majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPCI interoperability with institutional repositories was implemented as part of the COAR Notify project, facilitating direct submission from repositories.

Scale indicators15 records

Recent moves10 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Regional players

• SciELO: SciELO is a cooperative diamond open-access publishing platform primarily serving Latin America and Ibero-American countries. It shares PCI's diamond OA ethos and community-supported publishing model but operates in a different geographic and linguistic market.

Others

• bioRxiv and medRxiv: bioRxiv is the dominant preprint server in the life sciences and a direct integration partner of PCI Ecology. While not a peer-review service, bioRxiv is critical infrastructure on which PCI's preprint evaluation workflow depends.
• DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals): DOAJ is the primary index for open-access journals globally and lists Peer Community Journal. As an enabling infrastructure provider, DOAJ amplifies the discoverability of OA journals like PCJ, making it a relevant ecosystem participant.

Broad incumbents

• arXiv: arXiv is the foundational preprint server for physics, mathematics, and computer science. PCI's new Statistics & Machine Learning PCI overlaps with arXiv's domain and represents a complementary (rather than competing) layer of community evaluation on top of preprint deposit.
• Frontiers: Frontiers is an established open-access publisher operating across many scientific disciplines, several of which overlap with PCI's thematic communities. It represents the commercial, scaled incumbent alternative to PCI's community-led model.
• PLOS: PLOS is a major open-access publisher that, like PCI, was founded to make scholarly research freely accessible. While PLOS uses APCs rather than community-led sponsorship, both organizations represent the open-access movement targeting transparency and reduced publishing costs.

Direct peers

• eLife: eLife is a non-profit, diamond/open-access journal with an innovative peer-review model that publishes reviews alongside articles. Both eLife and PCI aim to reform scholarly publishing by decoupling evaluation from traditional journal gatekeeping, serving researchers seeking free, transparent peer review.
• Open Library of Humanities: Open Library of Humanities is a diamond open-access publisher funded by a consortium of libraries, structurally similar to PCI's institutional sponsorship model. Both are non-profit, library-supported alternatives to commercial scholarly publishing.
• F1000Research: F1000Research is an open research publishing platform that uses open peer review prior to formal acceptance. It shares PCI's commitment to transparent peer review of preprints and serves a similar author base seeking rapid, recognized peer review outside legacy journals.
• Center for Open Science (OSF Preprints): The Center for Open Science operates OSF Preprints, a free preprint aggregation and discovery platform supporting open peer review and registered reports. Like PCI, it is a non-profit advancing open science infrastructure and integrates with the preprint ecosystem to provide community-driven review signals.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks4 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/PeerCommunityIn
• GitHubgithub.com/pci-dev
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/peer-community-in

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Peer Community In