Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A researcher who reviewed for a journal partnered with Publons before 2022 would have had that review logged to a Publons profile; after the 2022 migration, that same verified review history is visible on the researcher's Web of Science Researcher Profile instead, under its peer review record section.
- Is an instance
Journals that previously linked to a 'Publons Academy' free peer-review training course now direct researchers to the equivalent Web of Science Academy training content under the Clarivate/Web of Science brand.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
ResearcherID is a distinct, older Clarivate identifier (created 2008) that was also merged into Web of Science, but it covered only publication and citation records -- it never handled peer review tracking the way Publons did, and predates Publons' 2017 acquisition by nearly a decade.
- Not an instance
A journal's own internal 'reviewer recognition' certificate or thank-you letter is a publisher-specific mechanism, not part of the cross-publisher Publons/Web of Science system -- it does not create a portable, verifiable record the way a Web of Science Researcher Profile entry does.
Editorial commentary
What Publons was
Publons was a researcher-facing platform, founded in 2012, built to solve a specific problem in scholarly publishing: peer review is normally unpaid, confidential, uncredited volunteer labor that leaves the reviewer with nothing to show a hiring, promotion, or funding committee. Publons let researchers log completed reviews — verified either directly by the handling journal or through publisher partnerships — building a documented, portable history of review and editorial work, along with recognition badges and a public reviewer profile. It became one of the largest cross-publisher reviewer recognition programs in scholarly publishing.
Acquisition and retirement as a standalone product
Clarivate acquired Publons in 2017 and began integrating it with its existing Web of Science platform and ResearcherID identifier system. That integration culminated in 2022, when Clarivate retired Publons as a separate destination: profiles, verified publication data, and peer-review history were migrated into the native Web of Science Researcher Profile, and the standalone Publons website began redirecting to Web of Science. Publons should therefore be described in the past tense — it is a retired, absorbed product, and any current guidance pointing researchers to create or maintain a separate Publons account describes a discontinued workflow. Some legacy Publons support pages and the older ‘Publons Academy’ training-course URL still exist as archived or redirected content, which is why the name persists in older citations and reviewer-guidance documents.
Where the functionality lives now
A researcher’s verified peer review history, alongside publication and citation metrics, is now maintained on their Web of Science Researcher Profile. Separately, verified peer review activity can also be pushed into a researcher’s ORCID record — peer review entries cannot be self-entered directly into ORCID, but a convening organization (a journal, publisher, or Web of Science acting on their behalf) can push a verified entry with the reviewer’s authorization, giving the review a second, portable home outside any single vendor’s platform.
What this means for researchers today
Anyone advising a researcher on documenting peer review contributions should point them to claiming or updating their Web of Science Researcher Profile, and to opting in to ORCID peer-review record syncing where a journal supports it — not to Publons itself. For the broader category of mechanism Publons was one instance of, see CASRAI’s reviewer recognition programs entry, and for the role reviewing plays in a researcher’s broader record, see the peer reviewer guide.
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Publons"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/publons" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/publons",
"name": "Publons",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/publons",
"description": "Publons was a researcher-facing web platform, launched in 2012, that let researchers log, verify, and get credit for peer review and editorial work performed for academic journals, building a portable reviewer history and profile. Clarivate acquired Publons in 2017 and progressively integrated it with Web of Science; Clarivate retired Publons as a separate destination in 2022, migrating existing profiles and their verified review history into the native Web of Science Researcher Profile. Publons is a retired, absorbed product, not a currently operating independent service -- content and guidance referring to 'signing up for Publons' or maintaining a separate Publons profile describes a discontinued workflow.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/research-info-systems#set",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/publons",
"sameAs": [],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"publisher": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
},
"author": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#editorial-team"
},
"datePublished": "2026-08-22T09:25:58",
"dateModified": "2026-09-04T07:25:31",
"inLanguage": "en-GB",
"isAccessibleForFree": true
}
