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 deposited in an open archive. In the submission form, we will ask you to indicate the URL (preferentially a DOI) giving public access to these data, codes and scripts.

Your preprint must not be published or under consideration for evaluation elsewhere at the time of its submission to PCI Microbiol.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.