A look back at 2024

In the nearly two years since we launched the eLife Model, we’ve been working to explain and clarify this new approach to publishing.

If you’re still curious about our model, our blog post titled “What is a Reviewed Preprint?” is a great place to start. Wondering how we select papers for review? This Editorial explains the selection process. If you’re thinking about submitting with our new model but want more detail on how it works and what you can expect, then this post is for you. Or if you have three minutes, our explainer video below gives you a whistlestop introduction.

In February, we celebrated and reflected on the first year of the eLife model for publishing. Our “One year on” blog post explores some of the key metrics and learnings, and our Editors-in-Chief shared their impressions on the first year of a new era. We then celebrated 10,000 submissions this September.

We’ve spoken to authors about their experiences publishing in the eLife Model and heard first hand what it meant to them.

“authors have a lot of control in the publication process” – Meike van der Heijden

“an open ‘conversation’… without the threat of rejection” – Patrick Allard

"smooth, fair, and transparent" – Ushio Masayuki

We kicked off 2024 with the launch of our newest community group, the Global South Committee for Open Science, followed by a reflection on some of the achievements of the eLife Community Ambassadors as their tenures came to an end. Further on, we welcomed six new members to our Early-Career Advisory Group, and celebrated the 6th year of our annual Ben Barres Spotlight Awards that recognised 14 researchers this year, including the first two recipients from Democratic Republic of Congo and Pakistan, supporting their impactful work within their communities. We also launched the eLife Community Voices podcast and so far have had three inspiring speakers.

We made meaningful progress on our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) commitments this year and shared our latest EDI update in November, highlighting achievements and outlining what’s next.

We’ve also been busy this year getting out and about, meeting researchers at conferences and wrestling with booth banners. We’ve been to Immunology, ASM Microbe, FEBS Congress, ECCB, Trained Immunity, and the British Ecological Society Annual Meeting. Squeezing one last conference trip into 2024, eLife staff are currently at Cell Bio in San Diego – come and say hi if you’re attending!

We launched a new learning resources page to help researchers find a wide range of advice, support and expertise all in one place. This collection of free online learning resources includes open-access articles, videos, downloadable content and more, with topics including research skills, career development, science communication, leadership and activism. ​​We also launched eLife Magazine Highlights – an email newsletter highlighting content from the magazine section of eLife.

If you want to be more involved in Open Science, you can learn about preprints and their benefits for you and your research community. You can also learn about the range of organisations working to support or encourage publish, review, curate models of publishing.

Or if you’re looking to improve or expand your sci comms skills check out our seven tips for discussing preprints on social media or more general tips to help you promote your research.

A round up of 2024 wouldn’t be complete without looking at some of the research we’ve published. There will always be more than we could possibly include in any list but here’s a selection of notable pieces.

We’ve had several Landmark papers, indicating findings likely to have profound implications for their field and widespread influence:

• Structural analysis of the dynamic ribosome-translocon complex
• Purine nucleosides replace cAMP in allosteric regulation of PKA in trypanosomatid pathogens
• Unanticipated mechanisms of covalent inhibitor and synthetic ligand cobinding to PPARγ

Exceptional papers are judged to show exemplary use of existing approaches and to set new standards for their field:

• Genetic basis of Arabidopsis thaliana responses to infection by naïve and adapted isolates of turnip mosaic virus
• PKCδ is an activator of neuronal mitochondrial metabolism that mediates the spacing effect on memory consolidation

Demonstrating the benefits of getting the right feedback, the editors of this paper on ageing and senescence changed their assessment of the evidence from Incomplete to Compelling following revisions by the authors.

Sciety continues blazing trails in scholarly infrastructure for preprint review and curation. It is now home to 36,000 evaluated preprints, with 76,000 evaluations from 27 community peer evaluation initiatives through 18 organisational partnerships. Notable new partners include the Microbiology Society, and AIMOS and RoRI which both launched the MetaROR platform in November.

This year, readership of preprints on Sciety increased by 100%, and Sciety increased the use of curated lists as signals of trust in the research by 150% and introduced a custom AI integration to surface related preprints to readers.

Thank you and see you in 2025!

All that’s left to say is to thank you for your continued support. We are grateful so many of you have joined us in our mission, and we look forward to what the future brings.

With our best wishes for the festive season and the year ahead,

eLife