Call for Reviewers and Submissions – Rapid Review Network for COVID-19#

About the call#

The Royal Society Open Science is a fast, open journal publishing high-quality original research across the entire range of science based on objective peer-review. The journal is issuing a special call for Registered Report (RR) submissions that are relevant to COVID-19 in any field, including but not limited to biological, medical, economic, and psychological research.

The journal is seeking reviewers in all fields to help with this extraordinary effort by agreeing to review manuscripts within 24 to 48 hours after accepting a review request.

Registered Reports are a form of empirical article offered by more than 200 journals in which study proposals are peer reviewed and pre-accepted before research is undertaken (for an overview click here and here. This article type offers a powerful tool for advancing research on COVID-19 by reducing publication bias and reporting bias in the growing evidence base.

This form of rapid review for RRs has never been attempted, and for it to succeed your cooperation is needed.

For reviewers#

If you are willing to review a Stage 1 RR in your field of expertise within 24-48 hours of accepting a review request, please complete this online form. You don’t need to be a virologist — research in a wide range of fields is relevant to COVID-19, including in maths, statistics and the social sciences. All expert reviewers are welcome, from PhD students to professors.

For authors#

For submissions, please complete your Stage 1 RR using this online template which will help ensure clear linking of the research question, hypotheses, analysis plans and prospective interpretation. All article processing charges for these submissions are automatically waived.

Further information#

• Short overview of the initiative
• If you would like to join this rapid review network, please complete this form