Portland Press policy on preprints

Portland Press does not consider the posting of work to a preprint server prior to journal article submission as prior or duplicate submission/publication. 

Portland Press welcomes submission of work that has previously been presented as a poster and/or work that has been posted as a pre-submission version to a preprint server, such as bioRxiv. Portland Press does not mandate that any articles submitted to their journals should be posted as a preprint. 

You may be contacted by the Editorial Office regarding a paper that you have posted to a preprint server which has triggered the interest of a particular Portland Press journal, where the Editorial Board feels the journal can provide an appropriate readership to critique and disseminate your work. 

Invitation to submit your preprint to a Portland Press journal is not a guarantee that it will be published, as all papers will undergo the full peer review process. 

Portland Press supports effective collaboration between journals and preprint servers. 

Portland Press is partnered with bioRxiv to allow authors to use the ‘B2J’ service that allows submission of a paper posted on bioRxiv directly to a Portland Press journal for consideration with the click of a button. More information on the B2J service can be found on the submit page on the bioRxiv website.  

Will my preprint be linked to the journal publication? 

Yes, most preprint servers should provide a link to the final journal article publication (the Version of Record). For example, bioRxiv generates a link to the published article within 2–3 weeks of the final Version of Record being published. The corresponding author should receive an email from bioRxiv to confirm this. This is an automatic process, facilitated by bioRxiv – no action from authors is needed.  

Specific requirements to consider when submitting to a Portland Press journal

• Authors should declare if there is a related preprint at the point of submission, and provide a link to the preprint. Please include this information in your cover letter. 

• Authors should not post versions of a paper to a preprint server that include changes made in response to the journal review process (i.e., in response to reviewers’ comments). 

• Once a paper has been accepted for publication in a Portland Press journal, it should not be posted on a preprint server. Upon acceptance of an article, Portland Press will publish the peer-reviewed accepted research paper online as an Accepted Manuscript (AM) while the final Version of Record is being prepared. The paper will be submitted to PubMed and Crossref for indexing within approximately 48 hours of acceptance.  

Can I cite preprints in articles submitted to Portland Press journals, and how should they be cited? 

Preprints can be cited in all Portland Press journals. Preprints should be cited using their DOI (digital object identifier). The format should be Author(s). (Year). Title, bioRxiv (or other preprint server name), DOI, posted date. The citation should clearly indicate that the reference is a preprint.

Policy on scooping 

Papers published in peer-reviewed journals after submission of a manuscript to a Portland Press publication are not considered relevant during the editorial assessment of the novelty of the submitted manuscript, and in these cases, a manuscript will not be rejected on the grounds that it lacks novelty.  Similarly, manuscripts already posted on recognised preprint servers (e.g., bioRxiv) will not be considered relevant in defining the novelty of manuscripts submitted to a Portland Press publication.

The Editorial Office should be notified as soon as possible if an author is aware of a publication directly relevant to their submitted manuscript, meaning that the submission should avail of ‘scoop’ protection.  

If there is an opportunity (during revision of a submission or before a submission is accepted/published) to cite the other relevant/related studies, appropriate citations should be included.  

Please note that the above policy relates to similar work that has been published within a short timeframe and is differentiated from studies repeating work that has been in the literature for years.