Publish | Review | Curate

What is PRC?

Publish, Review, Curate (PRC) is a decentralised model of publishing which involves review and validation / editorial commentary of an open access article or other type of research output. It introduces much greater openness and transparency across the publishing ecosystem, by making manuscripts, reviews, and commentaries open to the public.

PRC is a tremendously flexible model of publishing that can accommodate a wide variety of editorial workflows, types of peer review, and research outputs, as demonstrated by several flavours of PRC that are already in use, from overlay journals that more closely mirror a standard publication, to initiatives that are adopting more innovative practices.

PRC initiatives are typically researcher-driven and community-based and can be implemented in low-cost environments. In a climate where the scholarly community is increasingly looking for alternatives to the traditional publishing system that is high cost, opaque, and slow, PRC offers a very promising alternative. 

Working Definition

The interim working group defines PRC as follows:

Publish-Review-Curate (PRC) is a model of scholarly communication with three distinct steps, each of which fulfills a different function of the publishing process. 

A key part of the model is that research outputs are first published, prior to any subsequent review or curation.

  1. Publish: a research output (e.g., article, dataset, study registration) is made public, typically in an open access repository / preprint server by a researcher. 
  2. Review: reviewers evaluate the research output and provide feedback in an open, transparent way. 
  3. Curate: research outputs and reviews are organised and highlighted, often with summary judgements or evaluations applied to them.

More resources

For a more detailed overview of PRC, read this ASAPbio paper “Understanding the Publish-Review-Curate (PRC) Model of Scholarly Communication“

Ludo Waltman’s presentation at PRC event in Cambridge on December 3, 2025, “Why Publish, Review, Curate should be the future of scholarly publishing“

COAR’s “Publish, Review, Curate” web page and the COAR Notify resources