Nature Now Publishes Peer-Review Files for All Articles
What happens before a research paper appears in a scientific journal? Who asks the questions that remain hidden behind the final headline? And how does a draft manuscript become a published study? These are the kinds of questions Nature – one of the world’s most influential scientific journals – is now beginning to systematically reveal. As of June 16, 2025, peer review files – including reviewer comments and author responses – are automatically attached to every published article. Readers are invited to look directly into the heart of the scientific evaluation process.
Peer review – the process in which a manuscript is assessed by independent experts – is a cornerstone of quality assurance in scholarly publishing. At Nature, it has been a mandatory part of the editorial process since 1973. For decades, however, the peer review process itself remained hidden. In 2020, the journal began offering authors the option to publish peer review reports voluntarily. That option has now become the default: review files are from now on available automatically for every article.
Why does this matter? Making peer review documentation public allows readers to follow the path an article has taken: what reviewers questioned, how authors responded, and what changed in the process. It offers important context and reminds us that scientific knowledge is not created in isolation, but through dialogue, uncertainty, and revision. At a time when public trust in science is frequently debated, this move highlights transparency as one of science’s greatest strengths.
Nature is neither the first nor the only journal to move in this direction. Open peer review is also offered by several other high-profile journals, such as eLife, PLOS One, and selected titles from the Nature Research portfolio (for example, Nature Communications and others). Each of them follows a slightly different approach, but all share the same goal: to make the process by which scientific findings are evaluated more transparent. A further step toward openness is the publication of peer-review reports for articles that were not accepted – a practice already implemented, for instance, by eLife.
Some platforms go even further. F1000Research, for instance, publishes articles immediately after a basic editorial check, with peer review taking place afterwards – openly, transparently, and with signed reviewer reports. This model can be particularly well suited to studies where rapid dissemination or open discussion is of particular value – such as methodological papers or data articles. In these cases, the emphasis is often placed more on thorough documentation, data quality, and reproducibility than on interpretative conclusions.
By committing to the automatic publication of peer review files, Nature is sending a clear message: science is not a closed and definitive process. On the contrary – questions, doubts, disagreements, and debate are central to how research unfolds. Opening up the review process gives both readers and researchers better tools to understand not just the findings themselves, but the reasoning and revisions behind them. And that is the key benefit: greater transparency, clarity, and credibility in scientific communication.
Last updated on July 9, 2025
