What is the Peer Reviewers' Openness Initiative?

• A. An initiative to publish all reviewer comments openly.
• B. Signing up is a pledge to review only if data and materials are publicly available.
• C. An initiative to blind reviewers to authors.
• D. An initiative to get scientists to commit to the principles of open science when acting as expert reviewers for journals.

Answer: (D)

Open science in peer review is the focus. The Peer Reviewers' Openness Initiative invites scientists who serve as reviewers to commit to applying open-science principles when evaluating manuscripts for journals. This means upholding transparency and reproducibility in the review process—encouraging authors to share data, materials, and methods when possible, supporting preregistration and transparent reporting, and generally promoting openness in how reviews are conducted. It’s not primarily about publishing all reviewer comments, gating reviews on data availability, or keeping reviews blind; those are separate practices and not what this initiative centers on. The idea is a pledge to bring open-science values into the act of peer reviewing.