Neuroscience is the most represented field on the life-sciences preprint server bioRxiv.Credit: TEK Image/Science Photo Library
A comprehensive analysis of submissions to the preprint server bioRxiv has revealed a steady growth in the number of scientists uploading their findings to the platform — while neuroscientists have cemented their place as its the top users
In total, researchers have now posted more than 310,000 preprints to bioRxiv since it first launched in 2013, and the site receives about ten million views every month (see ‘The growth of bioRxiv’). The work also hints that the benefits of quick dissemination of research are winning over those who feared that non-peer-reviewed preprints could cause a loss of rigorous quality control in scientific publishing.
“Posting and referencing bioRxiv papers has become so common these days that, in some fields, people can raise an eyebrow if you don’t post your work there, jokingly asking ‘Have they got something to hide?’,” says Richard Sever, chief science and strategy officer at openRxiv, who is based in New York City. Set up last year, openRxiv is the non-profit organization that operates bioRxiv and its sister site, the health-sciences preprint server medRxiv, which was launched in 2019.
Part of the routine
The analysis was posted on bioRxiv on 26 February by Sever and his colleagues1. It is an update of a paper posted in 2019, when the site had just hit 64,000 posted manuscripts2.
“A clear message is the strong growth and interest in bioRxiv, with 4,000 papers published per month in 2025, alongside millions of monthly views and downloads,” says Katie Corker, executive director of ASAPbio, a non-profit organization in San Francisco, California, that works to improve transparency and rigor in communicating life-sciences research.
Since the server’s launch, monthly submissions have grown from a handful to more than 4,000 by late last year. About 80% of these preprints are published in research journals within three years, reports the new analysis.
The analysis also includes results from a 2023 survey of more than 7,000 bioRxiv and medRxiv users, which revealed that 30% of authors post their preprints weeks to months before submitting to a journal, whereas 55% post around the time of journal submission. When asked how posting articles on bioRxiv has helped their careers, the majority (78%) said it increased awareness of their research (see ‘Career accelerant’).
The server has secured itself as part of many scientists’ routines when scanning new research, says Sever. “Some people say that, if you don’t read bioRxiv, you’ll be a year behind everybody else in your field.”
Feedback culture
The survey also reveals that authors want to share work early, value the feedback they get and very rarely experience any negative consequences of posting preprints (see ‘Why post on bioRxiv?’).
“There are people who are like, ‘I’ve done it. I’m going to put it out there, get some feedback and then I’ll go to a journal,’” says Sever. “There are definitely people I know who’ve said they’d put a paper on bioRxiv and have got really interesting feedback. It’s made the paper better, so that when they go to a journal, they have an easier ride.”
Some researchers still see preprint servers as bypassing the traditional quality-control processes of peer review, which has the potential to distort the public understanding of science. There are also concerns that preprint servers are seeing more submissions produced using artificial intelligence tools, including a tide of AI slop.
To address such concerns, the bioRxiv team has made efforts to include a form of open peer review on the site.
