The Neuroscience Peer-Review Consortium is an imaginative alliance of neuroscience journals. From 1 January 2008, if a manuscript is not accepted by one journal in the consortium, the authors can submit it to a second consortium journal and have the reviews from the first journal forwarded to the second. This is similar to the NPG journals’ manuscript-transfer system, but is subject-specific rather than publisher-specific.
In a related post on Action Potential, the Nature Neuroscience blog, Noah Gray points out that consortium journals must drop the review practice of ‘confidential comments’ to the editor. Noah asks his author and reviewer readers for their views on this aspect of the proposal; so far more than 30 have contributed to a thoughtful discussion. Most readers liked the proposed system, but were divided about the confidential comments question — some feel that there is no place for such comments, others put forward various reasons for their value, and yet others are not sure why they need be excluded from consortium journals. See Action Potential for all opinions in full.
Nature 450, xiii; 13 December 2007