The volume and breadth of COVID-19 research now underway and being shared widely is overwhelming: clinical studies and research reports on host genetic analysis, diagnostic modalities, antiviral drug and vaccine development, and socio-economic determinants. To cope with the unprecedented pace of research, prominent journals like Science and The Lancet have become powerful gatekeepers. After all, published, peer reviewed science plays a critical role informing policy on life and death matters: the adoption of new drug treatments, clinical guidelines in our hospitals and doctors’ offices, and new methods to avoid infection as we reopen our economy.

We need a transformation in how early data is shared. But the urgent need for peer-reviewed science, coupled with the potential harms of unreviewed publication, has set the stage for a public discussion on the future of academic publishing. It’s clear that we need rapid, transparent peer review that allows reviewers, authors, and readers to engage with one another, and for dynamic use of technology to accelerate publishing timelines without reducing academic rigor or researcher accountability. However, the field of academic publishing will need significant financial support to catalyze these changes.

Rapid Reviews: COVID-19 (RR:C19) is an innovation in open publishing that allows for rigorous, transparent peer review that is publicly shared in advance of publication. We believe that pushing the peer review process further upstream—so that it occurs at the preprint stage—will benefit a wide variety of stakeholders: journalists, clinicians, researchers, and the public at large.

By offering peer review of preprints, our goal is to help staunch the uptake of misinterpretations and disinformation and accelerate the uptake of validated science, so that clinicians, researchers, and policy-makers can make sound, evidence-based decisions.

Read the full article about COVID-19 rapid reviews by Vilas Dhar, Amy Brand, and Stefano Bertozzi at Stanford Social Innovation Review.