Why Support Us?
Every year, billions of dollars in philanthropic and policy decisions rely on academic research — yet this research is often poorly evaluated, stuck behind paywalls, or takes years to receive meaningful feedback. Traditional peer review is slow, secretive, and wastes researchers' time on journal-shopping rather than improving their work.
We're changing that. The Unjournal commissions fast, transparent, expert evaluation of research that matters — research informing decisions about global health, animal welfare, catastrophic risks, and evidence-based policy. Our evaluations are public, quantified, and useful.
We're helping transform academia
The academic journal system — built around printed journals and binary accept/reject decisions — is archaic. It discourages innovation, extracts rents, and creates a collective action problem that traps researchers in a system everyone knows is broken.
The Unjournal is helping coordinate an exit:
- Demonstrating that journal-independent evaluation can provide credible, useful feedback
- Encouraging a focus on impact — evaluating research that matters for real decisions
- Boosting transparency and open science — public evaluations with quantified ratings
- Building the track record and infrastructure for universities, funders, and researchers to adopt better systems
- Exploring AI's potential for credible, reliable peer review
Your donation directly funds:
- Expert evaluator compensation ($350–450 per evaluation)
- Prizes for exceptional research and evaluation work
- Our Pivotal Questions initiative — identifying high-value-of-information research questions
- Infrastructure for open, journal-independent evaluation
- Tool-building and AI research to understand how AI can support rigorous peer review
See The Unjournal in action
Subscribe to our YouTube channel for presentations, discussions, and updates.
What Your Donation Pays For
Every dollar goes toward commissioning expert evaluation of high-impact research. Here's what different levels of support make possible:
Funds our per-evaluation Evaluator Prize incentive, rewarding the most thorough and insightful reviews
Funds one evaluation manager's detailed synthesis of evaluator reports
Sponsors a complete expert evaluation of a research paper, published openly on PubPub
Sponsors a set of evaluations on a theme — e.g., lead exposure, animal welfare, or AI risk
A named evaluation project or Pivotal Question investigation on a topic you help define
How we recognize your support
We believe in transparency — including about our own funding. We're happy to recognize your contribution in ways that match your preference:
- On our PubPub evaluation pages: Donors at the $1,200+ level (sponsoring a full evaluation package) can be acknowledged as the sponsor of that specific evaluation, visible on the published page at unjournal.pubpub.org
- Named evaluation series ($5,000+): A thematic series can carry your name or your organization's — e.g., "The [Your Name] Series on Climate Adaptation Research"
- In our annual reports and communications: With your permission, we acknowledge funders in our reports to the community, on the EA Forum, and in presentations
- Larger contributions: For major gifts, we're happy to discuss recognition on unjournal.org, our interactive dashboard, and other venues — let's talk about what makes sense
- Anonymous giving: We also welcome anonymous donations — just let us know your preference
Ways to Give
Donate Online
One-time or monthly via Donorbox. All donations are tax-deductible.
Donor-Advised Funds
Direct your Fidelity, Schwab, or other DAF to Unjournal Inc.
Stock & Crypto
We accept appreciated securities and cryptocurrency. Contact us to arrange.
Employer Matching
Many employers match gifts. Check if yours does and double your impact.
Tailored Support Opportunities
Commission evaluations of research you rely on
You're making multi-million dollar funding decisions based on academic research. But how confident are you in that research?
- Independent, expert assessment of research you fund or rely on
- Faster feedback than traditional peer review (weeks, not years)
- Quantified ratings benchmarked against comparable work
- Public signal of your commitment to transparency and rigor
Pivotal Questions Partnership: Tell us the open empirical questions that most affect your recommendations. We'll identify relevant research, commission evaluations, and synthesize findings.
Let's Talk Discuss The Unjournal and your potential contribution with our founder, David ReinsteinGet quality control on the research you fund
You invest in academic research — but peer review is often years away. We provide independent, arms-length evaluation by world-leading experts.
Sponsor a thematic evaluation series:
- Global Health & Development: Water/sanitation, cash transfers, nutrition, lead exposure
- Animal Welfare: Farmed animal advocacy, alternative proteins, welfare economics
- Catastrophic Risks: AI governance, biosecurity, nuclear policy
- Climate & Environment: Carbon pricing, adaptation, energy transition
Recognition tiers:
- $5,000–$14,999 Acknowledged sponsor on the published evaluation package
- $15,000–$49,999 Named evaluation series with your organization's branding
- Larger gifts Let's discuss — recognition on our website, advisory input on research priorities, and more
Signal confidence in your work through public evaluation
By submitting your research for Unjournal evaluation, you send a powerful signal: you're confident in your approach, open to constructive criticism, and motivated by truth-seeking.
- Get detailed methodological feedback from independent experts
- Build credibility with funders, policymakers, and peers
- Demonstrate transparency and openness to critique
- Improve your work based on actionable suggestions
Contact contact@unjournal.org to discuss evaluating your research portfolio.
Help us fix academic publishing
The journal system is broken: slow, expensive, secretive, creating perverse incentives. The Unjournal offers a working alternative:
- Public evaluations with accountability
- Quantified ratings enabling comparison
- Dynamic documents and living research (not frozen PDFs)
- No paywalls, no article processing charges
We're also exploring AI's potential for supporting peer review — understanding where LLMs can help and where human expertise remains essential.
Sponsor events that bring researchers and practitioners together
We're building a community around better research evaluation. Your support can help fund:
- In-person evaluation workshops — hands-on sessions where researchers receive and discuss evaluations of their work in real time
- Joint workshops with i4replication.org — combining replication research and open evaluation for maximum credibility
- Online public seminars — researcher/practitioner sessions with shared feedback, bringing evaluators, authors, and policy audiences together
- Pivotal Questions workshops — focused sessions with organizations and policymakers to identify the open empirical questions that matter most for impact
Event sponsorship includes recognition in all materials and communications. Let's discuss what would be most valuable for your organization.
Invest in the evaluation system you wish existed
You know the problems: months gaming journals, opaque feedback, desk rejections. We're building something better:
- Fair compensation for evaluation work (unlike volunteer peer review)
- Recognition and prizes for rigorous, useful evaluations
- Infrastructure for evaluating dynamic documents and code
- Research on AI-assisted evaluation to improve peer review quality
Even small donations help — and signal to funders and institutions that researchers want reform.
Our Track Record
Research evaluated across global health, animal welfare, development economics, catastrophic risks, and policy. Our evaluations are indexed in academic databases (OpenAlex, Crossref, DataCite). Browse our prize-winning evaluations or read our recent write-ups on the EA Forum.
Explore our work
Our Supporters
We're grateful to the organizations and individuals who have funded our work and helped build open research evaluation.
Your name or organization could be here. Donate or get in touch to discuss support.
Questions?
Contact us: contact@unjournal.org
Learn more: Main website • Commissioned evaluations • For Researchers • For Evaluators • EA Forum series • Bluesky