Repositories can also offer peer review functionalities. By turning repositories into evaluation platforms the quality control of the scholarly communication process is given back to the research communities.  

Independent peer review services are an integral part of the review from the publishing process that aim to provide a user-friendly and transparent review process, which benefits both authors and reviewers. These platforms advocate a network-based approach that fosters the collaboration between authors, editors and reviewers to improve the paper.

These guidelines explain the rules on open access to scientific peer reviewed publications and research data that beneficiaries have to follow in projects funded or co-funded under Horizon 2020.  

Motivations, training and support in peer review

Peer review in all its forms plays an important role in ensuring the integrity of the scholarly record. The process depends to a large extent on trust, and requires that everyone involved behaves responsibly and ethically. Peer reviewers play a central and critical part in the peer-review process, but too often come to the role without any guidance and unaware of their ethical obligations. COPE has produced some guidelines which set out the basic principles and standards to which all peer reviewers should adhere during the peer-review process in research publication. The aim has been to make them generic so that they can be applied across disciplines.