A top-flight journal, Nature Neuroscience, has joined an innovative group of journals that transfer peer reviewers’ comments from one to the next.

It may sound counter to their self-interest, but neuroscientists whose papers are rejected can use the peer reviews they received at the rejecting journal. The Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium has, since January, allowed authors to transfer the reviews among the 28 journals that are members of the consortium. The journals will continue sharing reviews until the end of the year, when they will evaluate the program’s success.

Authors may choose to do this when, for example, a peer review was positive but suggested that the manuscript was not appropriate for the specific journal. The paper could then be published more quickly in a second journal than if it had to be sent out for review anew.

In an editorial in the April issue announcing its decision to join the consortium, Nature Neuroscience notes that the various Nature journals already use a similar system.

The process should benefit journals by speeding up, and thereby lessening the costs of, the peer-review process. —Lila Guterman