What is Web of Science Researcher Profile and what happened to Publons?


Web of Science Researcher Profiles are the next stage in the evolution of Clarivate’s researcher profile offering after replacing Publons. Web of Science Researcher Profile is the only profile where researchers can track their publicationscitation metricshandling editor work, and peer reviews for journals, conferences, and funders in one place.


Why did this happen?


This migration of Publons profiles into the Web of Science occurred to combine Clarivate’s two researcher representations (profiles and Web of Science author records) into Clarivate’s pre-eminent researcher-facing platform and simplify the experience of those researchers and administrators tracking their research outputs. 


The successful acquisition of Publons in 2017 strengthened Clarivate in the peer review space and as a leading global provider of research information to enable academia, corporations, publishers and governments to accelerate the pace of research. Publons products and services grew and strengthened under Clarivate to become the global peer review profile & service offering used by 2.5M researchers and almost 500 partners today. 


To build on this success and consolidate Web of Science’s researcher-first approach Publons profiles and peer review services are moving under the internationally recognised, flagship Web of Science brand.  


This will mean researchers get recognition for their publications, peer review, editorial work on a Web of Science branded profile, allowing them to build their record & reputation with the Web of Science brand.  


In addition, the peer review service offerings used by almost 10,000 journals will now be provided by Web of Science, already a trusted data & analytics partner. 


What services does Web of Science offer to Partners?


Web of Science offers partner services that help publishers and journals to acknowledge the efforts of their reviewers and find, screen, and connect with the subject matter experts needed to peer review manuscript submissions.


We have two paid-for products:


  • Reviewer Recognition Service: Web of Science integrates into the reviewer workflow so academics can track and verify every review and editorial contribution on-the-fly, and in full compliance with journal review policies. We integrate seamlessly with all submission systems to automate the process of recognizing your reviewers.

  • Web of Science Reviewer Locator a great new search tool to help you quickly find the best reviewers, combining the power of Web of Science researcher profile's exclusive peer review database with the unparalleled Web of Science author and citation index.