How preprints accelerated science communication during the pandemic

During the early phase of the pandemic, approximately 40% of the COVID-19 literature was shared as preprints – freely available manuscripts that are shared prior to peer-review. In a new study publishing in the open access journal PLOS Biology, researchers led by Dr Jonathon Coates (Queen Mary University of London), Dr Nicholas Fraser (Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, Germany) and Dr Liam Brierley (University of Liverpool) explore the crucial role of preprint servers in hosting COVID-19 related science and how these preprints have been used to disseminate knowledge of COVID-19, leading to cultural shifts in journalistic and policy practices.

There has been a rapid and incredible scientific response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with research being shared less than a month after the first reported case, and vaccines being developed in less than a year. The researchers find that this has been matched by a striking change in the way in which research is accessed and communicated; preprints describing COVID-19 research are downloaded and accessed at unprecedented levels (up to 10-fold more than research unrelated to the pandemic) and are being heavily used by reporters and policy makers for the first time.

According to the study’s lead author, Dr Jonathon Coates, “The pandemic has shone a light on the benefits of preprints over more traditional publishing and it was clear early in the pandemic that something was happening with preprint usage”.

When the researchers explored how preprints were being shared, they found that COVID-19 preprints were being shared across online platforms such as Twitter at a rate of over 7 times that of non-COVID-19 preprints. Although traditionally rarely referenced by official policy documents or reported on by journalists, preprints describing COVID-19 research are frequently being cited in policy and reported in news media, bringing active research closer to policymakers as well as the general public than ever before.

“Prominent public officials, such as Dr Fauci, have stated that preprints have been important in accelerating our understanding of COVID-19. Our data provides evidence to support these statements and reveals a clear cultural shift in the use of preprints by scientists, the general public, journalists and policy makers” says Dr Coates, “What we hope is that the cultural shifts reported in this paper will remain after the pandemic and the biomedical community will continue to turn to preprint servers for disseminating new studies”.

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Research article

Peer-reviewed; Observational study; Methodology

In your coverage please use these URLs to provide access to the freely available articles in PLOS Biology:
http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000959

Citation: Fraser N, Brierley L, Dey G, Polka JK, Pálfy M, Nanni F, et al. (2021) The evolving role of preprints in the dissemination of COVID-19 research and their impact on the science communication landscape. PLoS Biol 19(4): e3000959.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000959

Funding: NF acknowledges funding from the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research, grant numbers 01PU17005B (OASE) and 01PU17011D (QuaMedFo). LB acknowledges funding from a Medical Research Council Skills Development Fellowship award, grant number MR/T027355/1. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interests: I have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: JP is the executive director of ASAPbio, a non-profit organization promoting the productive use of preprints in the life sciences. GD is a bioRxiv Affiliate, part of a volunteer group of scientists that screen preprints deposited on the bioRxiv server. MP is the community manager for preLights, a non-profit preprint highlighting service. GD and JAC are contributors to preLights and ASAPBio fellows.