The many shapes of peer review: how to make journal review and preprint review activities more complementary?

While peer review plays a central role in the evaluation and publication of research findings, there are a number of known challenges related to inefficiencies and lack of diversity in the peer review process at system level. Preprint review activities have received increasing attention in recent years and may provide avenues for addressing some of the current challenges in journal peer review. At a workshop during the Researcher to Reader conference in February 2021, we explored how preprint review activities could be made more complementary with journal review and leveraged to increase diversity in peer review. We summarize the discussions at the workshop covering the benefits and challenges of preprint review for different stakeholders, what a journal-compatible preprint review looks like, and the barriers and potential solutions to make preprint review more complementary with journal review.