Why Submit Your Research?
Submitting to The Unjournal signals that you're confident in your work, open to constructive criticism, and motivated to seek the truth. It demonstrates engagement with the open science movement and connects your research with communities focused on global impact.
We evaluate working papers, preprints, and dynamic documents. There are no formatting requirements. We assess the research itself, not how it's packaged.
Key Benefits
Substantive Expert Feedback
Quality feedback is hard to get, especially for early-career researchers. We connect you with paid evaluators who provide meaningful, detailed critique—not just surface-level comments.
Credibility & Recognition
Selection by The Unjournal reflects potential global relevance. Our quantitative ratings serve as credibility markers for funders, policymakers, and other researchers.
Public Response Opportunity
You can publicly respond to evaluations, clarifying misconceptions and correcting misunderstandings. Your response gets its own DOI and stands alongside the evaluations.
Increased Visibility
We publicize evaluations through social media, forums, and longer-form content. Your work reaches the Open Science and Global Priorities communities.
Community Connection
Engagement opens doors to collaborations, grants, and networking with researchers focused on effective interventions and evidence-based policy.
Innovation Recognition
Be recognized as an early adopter in open science. Authors who embrace transparent evaluation demonstrate commitment to research integrity.
Potential Prize Eligibility
Highly-rated research may become eligible for our Impactful Research Prize, offering publicity, reputation, and potential financial awards (funding dependent).
Format Flexibility
Unlike traditional journals, we encourage modern formats like Quarto, dynamic documents, and code-integrated research. Reproducibility is valued, not penalized.
Especially Valuable For
The Unjournal particularly helps researchers whose work may be:
- Under-published due to time pressure or career transitions
- Interdisciplinary and hard to place in traditional journals
- Substantially improved post-publication
- Strong empirically but undervalued by traditional academic incentives
- In subfields with limited journal options
How It Works
Submit Your Work
Share a link to your publicly hosted work (ideally with a DOI). Use our submission form or email contact@unjournal.org.
Expert Evaluation
We engage two evaluators with relevant expertise. They provide detailed feedback and quantitative ratings across multiple dimensions.
Your Response
Before evaluations go public, you have two weeks to respond. Clarify doubts, explain your choices, highlight revisions.
Public Publication
Evaluations, ratings, and your response are published on unjournal.pubpub.org. Everything receives DOIs and is indexed in scholarly databases.
Frequently Asked Questions
Unlike traditional anonymous peer review, our evaluations are public. But as Brian Nosek notes, to advance your career, you need people engaging critically with your work. Academics regularly receive critical feedback; public evaluation demonstrates confidence, not weakness.
We also offer conditional embargoes for early-career researchers concerned about visibility of evaluations during sensitive career stages.
No. The Unjournal is completely non-exclusive. You can submit to traditional journals before, during, or after our evaluation. We do not claim any publishing rights.
You don't need to address every point. Respond only where you have something substantive: clarifying doubts, explaining choices, highlighting revisions. Use clear narratives, group themes logically, and maintain a substantive tone.
If you're still revising, you can post a placeholder response noting that updates are forthcoming.
We prioritize evaluating the most recent version. Share substantial updates during evaluation—evaluators may revise their comments. We remain open to re-evaluating revised papers after initial publication if both authors and evaluators engage.
The Unjournal sometimes selects papers directly for evaluation. If your work is chosen, you'll be notified and can request embargoes or specify desired feedback areas. You'll have two weeks to respond after evaluations are complete.
Yes. Email us at contact@unjournal.org or use the submission form to request a conditional embargo. Early-career researchers may receive exceptions for delayed publication of evaluations.
Submitting to The Unjournal signals that you are confident in your work, open to constructive criticism, and motivated to seek the truth.
Ready to Submit?
Get expert feedback, public credibility, and connect with communities focused on global impact. There's no formatting requirement—just share a link to your work.
Submit Your Research What We Look For