Before submission

We recommend that you consult our guide for authors to prepare your submission. If you consider publication in Peer Community Journal in case your article is recommended, we suggest you already format your preprint with our submission template for thematic PCI to save time.

You must first deposit your preprint on an open archive, such as bioRxiv or arXiv, to obtain a DOI or any unique identifier. If your preprint contains data, scripts (e.g. for statistical analysis, like R scripts) and/or codes (e.g. codes for original programs or software), they should be made available to readers, either in the text or through a correctly versioned deposit in an open repository, such as Zenodo, Dryad or some other institutional repository (see Directory of Open Access Repositories) with a DOI or another permanent identifier (such as a SWHID of Software heritage). Note that Git URLs are not permanent. Information on how to issue a DOI for a GitHub repository is given at https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/archiving-a-github-repository/referencing-and-citing-content. Data, scripts or codes must be carefully described such that another researcher can reuse them.

Your preprint must not be published or under consideration for evaluation elsewhere at the time of its submission to PCI Microbiol. If your preprint is sent out for review by PCI Microbiol, you are not permitted to submit it to a journal until the PCI Microbiol evaluation process has been completed.
You cannot, therefore, submit your preprint to a journal before its rejection or recommendation by PCI Microbiol.

Please note that:

• it can take up to 20 days before a recommender decides to handle your preprint and therefore to send it out for peer-review.
• the median time between submission and the recommender's decision based on the first round of peer-review is currently 44.5 days.
• the evaluation of your preprint might take several rounds of review before the recommender take the final decision to reject or recommend your preprint. 

Details about the evaluation & recommendation process can be found here.