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Much of what shapes a scientific paper never sees the light of day. Reviewer reports vanish into private inboxes. Editorial decisions are distilled into a single word: accept or reject. Author responses, where arguments sharpen and evidence is strengthened, are rarely seen at all. Yet these exchanges are at the heart of how science improves itself.

These were some of the concerns that inspired the creation of MetaROR, short for MetaResearch Open Review. It is a publishing infrastructure explicitly designed for the metaresearch universe, which encompasses the disciplines dedicated to the study of research itself. But its implications stretch more broadly. MetaROR offers a space where reviews are open, editorial assessments are public, and peer dialogue is visible, all without tying evaluation to journal prestige or binary decisions.

The platform was launched in late 2024 as a joint initiative of the Research on Research Institute (RoRI) and the Association for Interdisciplinary Meta-Research and Open Science (AIMOS). It is, in many ways, a response to the widely acknowledged crisis in scientific publishing. More importantly, it is a proposal that tests a new model of how science can be reviewed, curated, and communicated in the open.

Beyond Acceptance 

MetaROR is not a journal, and its focus is not on publishing articles. That is not an omission. It is the point. Instead, it publishes peer reviews and editorial assessments of works already made available as preprints or in other open formats. The goal is to decouple the function of quality evaluation from the function of dissemination. These are two tasks that traditional journals have long bundled together.

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At the Core of MetaROR Is a Simple but Powerful Workflow: Publish, Review, Curate (PRC)

Authors begin by posting their manuscript on a recognized preprint server such as OSF, arXiv, or Zenodo. They then submit a request to MetaROR, which initiates an editorial process aimed at facilitating high-quality, open peer review.

Each review is published as a citable contribution in its own right. Crucially, this transparency does not compromise rigor. On the contrary, knowing that reviews will be read by the community encourages thoughtfulness, clarity, and accountability. Reviewer identities are visible by default, though reviewers may opt to remain anonymous.

Once reviews are completed, editors do not render a verdict. Instead, they synthesize the reviews into a short, structured assessment that highlights the work’s strengths, limitations, and potential contributions. The process is rigorous but also collaborative. Authors are invited to respond to reviews, and, when appropriate, updated versions of the manuscript can be linked to the evolving assessment record. The result is a layered public dialogue that reflects not only the final judgment but also the reasoning behind it.

Peer Review as Research Output

MetaROR is not the first platform to experiment with open review. But it is possibly the first designed from the ground up for metaresearch, a group of disciplines that often critique the systems they must also navigate. In this context, publishing reviews as standalone outputs is not just a technical improvement. It is an epistemological shift.

Reviews are knowledge work. They interpret methods, challenge assumptions, and contextualize findings. They often contain insights as valuable as the papers they assess. This has implications beyond individual recognition. Public reviews allow readers to understand how a piece of research was received. They can see not only whether it was found convincing, but why.

Each review is published with a DOI so that the work is recognized, preserved, and made part of the scholarly record. With reviews being citable research outputs, reviewers can refer to these contributions in funding or hiring applications. This helps shift the incentive structure around peer assessment and strengthens the potential for recognition and reward of a core scientific activity.

From Journals to Ecosystems

One of MetaROR’s founding principles is that good peer review should travel with the work. To that end, we have been developing partnerships with journals that agree to consider submissions accompanied by a MetaROR assessment.

These include Quantitative Science Studies, Science as Culture, and Scientometrics, among others. Most recently, PLOS Biology joined as a formal partner, contributing to the significant endorsement the model’s scientific value has been receiving.

Authors whose preprints are reviewed on MetaROR can submit their manuscripts to these journals along with the complete review package. Editors may use the reviews to inform their decisions, commission additional feedback, or offer a faster track to publication. The process is flexible, but the principle is firm: good reviews should not be wasted. This system helps reduce duplication and accelerate evaluation while preserving the credibility of rigorous peer review.

A Model in Motion

MetaROR is still young. Its workflows are evolving, and its community is growing. Early submissions include not only traditional articles but also scientific blog posts and other formats that often fall outside the scope of conventional journals but are central to shaping the metaresearch field.

Experiments are underway with structured editorial summaries that can be used by funders or hiring panels, offering a way to assess research quality independent of venue. Collaboration with partners ensures that the infrastructure remains community-led, interoperable, and openly governed.

At the same time, the limits of any single platform are acknowledged. MetaROR is not a universal solution, and it was never meant to be. But it is a testbed. It is a place to try out new ideas, document what works, and refine what does not. In that sense, it belongs to the broader movement for reform in scholarly communication, one that includes preprint servers, open metrics, multilingual publishing, and more plural models of research evaluation.

An Invitation

The success of MetaROR will depend on the community it builds. The platform needs authors willing to submit their work for open review. It needs reviewers ready to share their expertise publicly. It needs editors who see curation as a service, not a gatekeeping role. It also needs institutions that value the diverse contributions that make up the research ecosystem. Above all, MetaROR needs to stay open. Not only in terms of access, but in its willingness to rethink how research is assessed and shared. The black box of peer review has long shielded us from scrutiny. It is time to turn on the light.