Pandemic Publishing: Medical journals drastically speed up their publication process for Covid-19

Serge P.J.M. Horbach

Our analysis indicates that the scholarly publishing enterprise has managed to drastically speed up the dissemination of Covid-19 related research material since the outbreak of the pandemic. In particular, academic journals managed to decrease the duration of their publication process by 49%, or 57 days on average, which is a statistically relevant difference. Some journals even show a decrease in publication time of over 80% compared to the pre-crisis era. This acceleration concerns both the stage of review (between submission and acceptance) and the editing stage (between acceptance and publication). The journals in our sample shortened both stages by 47% (45 days) and 61% (14 days) respectively. Hence the majority of the decrease in total publication time is due to speeding up the review process. We also conclude that the acceleration of the publication process is specific to Covid-19 related articles.