What are preprint servers?
Preprint servers are platforms where you can share manuscripts that have not yet been peer reviewed or published in a traditional publishing venue (e.g. journal, book). These platforms allow for the quick dissemination of your research. From the VU Open Access Innovation Fund VU Amsterdam supports a number of reliable preprint platforms on which authors can share their work:
- ArXiv
- BioRxiv
- MedRxiv
- ChemRxiv
- PsyArXiv
- SocArXiv
- OSF Preprints
- SportRxiv
Why should you use these preprint servers?
Firstly, the preprint format allows you to share your research quickly and openly. This increases the visibility of your work, and accelerates the reuse of it.
By making the preprint open to anyone to read, it allows you to gather early feedback on your work, to further you research. But besides helping your own research, sharing a preprint also promotes collaboration and shared innovation: it allows academics to rapidly build on each other’s work to answer shared research questions more quickly and collaboratively.
Use of the preprint servers like the ones described above, is free for both author and reader. Preprints can be transformed into traditional research outputs (f.e. articles) at a later stage, or can even be independently peer-reviewed and curated, to ensure the quality and good dissemination of the end result of you research. Preprints can be shared within any field.
You can read more about preprints in A Practical Guide to Preprints: Accelerating Scholarly Communication.
Why an Innovation Fund?
Since 2023, the VU Open Access Innovation Fund supports journals, publishers, and infrastructure that are that are committed to ‘Diamond Open Access’, allowing researchers to publish without having to pay. This is a fairer and more open alternative to journals from large commercial publishers that charge high fees for Open Access. However, choosing ‘Diamond Open Access’ is not yet evident for all researchers: the journals and platforms are often smaller, making them harder to find, and there are often questions about the quality, susutainability, and prestige of publishing ‘Diamond Open Access’. The VU Open Access Innovation Fund was established to show researchers that there are high-quality, equitable, Diamond publication alternatives available that allow them to contribute to more inclusive (open) science.
