Excellent editorial from @sfmatheson’s team at Cell Reports, setting forward their guidelines on scooping:
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/pdf/S2211-1247(20)30631-8.pdf
At Cell Reports, we reject the concept of scooping if the similar paper we receive contains findings related to recently published work and when it could reasonably be deduced that the timing of the findings overlapped. This is not a new policy, but we are making it permanent and explicit. What do we mean by ‘‘overlapping?’’ We consider two or more papers to be overlapping if we know or can reasonably assume that the research itself overlapped and if the first paper was recent enough that it couldn’t have been the basis of the second paper’s conception.
When reviews come back indicating the need for revisions, we
have three tools we can use:
If revisions are critical for the paper to be published at Cell Reports, the authors get as much time as they need, with the ‘scoop clock’’ stopped.
If revisions are important but not critical (a judgment we will make, often in consultation with reviewers), we will require use of a specific Discussion section, ‘‘Limitations,’’ that explains not just limitations but specific unanswered questions that were tabled due to lab closure.
We will redouble our ongoing efforts to ensure that suggested revisions are central to the paper’s scope and argument. This is not a pandemic-specific goal, but it is all the more important given that peer review and revision have become even more complicated.
This is really good. I hope more journals follow @sfmatheson’s lead.