Around half of COVID-19 preprint papers end up being published in peer-reviewed journals

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-12-09 03:00

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European scientists say around half of the COVID-19 studies that were published as preprints (with no peer review) in 2020 on the MedRxiv preprint server were later published in peer-reviewed journals. They looked at 3,343 preprints published on the server in 2020 and followed up in October 2022, by which point 1,742 (52.1%) had made it into peer-reviewed journals. Of those, 827 (47.5%) were picked up by some of the world's most prestigious scientific journals. The proportion of preprints that made it into journals is around the same as the scientists found when they looked seven months earlier, suggesting the rate probably won't change much in the future, they say. Limitations with the study included just looking at one preprint server, and only at papers about COVID-19, so this may not apply to preprints on other topics or servers, the scientists say.