Following the meeting in December 2025 to discuss the Publish Review, Curate (PRC) model of publishing, we announced our ambition to establish a PRC Alliance. Its purpose is to help accelerate the adoption of PRC and facilitate greater coordination across the diverse PRC community by acting as a mechanism for addressing shared issues and challenges. To help launch the PRC Alliance, an interim working group (IWG) was formed in January 2026.
This post provides an overview of our activities to date and outlines our next steps.
Overarching objectives
The IWG discussed the purpose of the PRC Alliance and agreed on the following three objectives:
- To help raise the visibility and status of the PRC model
- To facilitate greater coordination across the diverse PRC community
- To explore ways in which like-minded organisations can work together to collaboratively support innovative PRC pilots
Concrete success measures have not yet been established; however, the assumption is that the PRC Alliance will be making progress if the PRC model expands beyond the current community and begins to become mainstream.
Membership and funding model
Membership of the PRC Alliance will be open to two categories of organisations: PRC Implementers (to include repositories, preprint servers, peer review services, journals, publishers, and curation services) and PRC Supporters (to include research institutions, libraries, funders, and other supportive organisations).
Organisations that wish to join the PRC Alliance as implementers must provide details as to how they are implementing or supporting this model. Further details – including the principles we expect members to align with – can be found here.
In the first year of operation, the PRC Alliance will be supported by the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) using funds provided by Arcadia for the COAR Notify Project. During the first year, the members will develop an appropriate funding model to support the PRC Alliance in the future.
Governance
The PRC Alliance will be a lightweight initiative with a simple two-tier structure consisting of a Members Group and an Executive Steering Group.
Representatives from each PRC Alliance member organisation will be invited to participate in the Members Group. The Members Group will be responsible for approving the strategic directions of the PRC Alliance and participating in PRC Alliance activities.
The Executive Steering Group members will be nominated by the Members Group and will be responsible for coordinating, implementing, and executing the PRC Alliance strategy, work plan, and resources.
Outreach
A key part of our work has been to reach out to potential members to inform them of our plans and ultimately assess their interest in joining the PRC Alliance. So far, the response has been very positive, and we anticipate that we will launch the PRC Alliance with an engaged and active founding membership base.
If you are interested in learning more about our plans and/or would like to consider joining the Alliance as a founding member, we’d be delighted to hear from you. Please contact Robert Kiley (robert.kiley@ntlworld.com) to arrange a call.
Launch of the PRC Alliance
Plans are underway to launch the Alliance with an online event in October 2026. Further details will be available on the website, but if you would like to be notified directly, please complete this short form.
The event will showcase the tremendous flexibility and diversity of different PRC initiatives and demonstrate the substantial benefits it offers as a more open, rapid, and transparent approach to publishing scholarly research.
Publish | Review | Curate 