--- title: ICSAC emoji: 📄 colorFrom: indigo colorTo: gray sdk: static pinned: true short_description: Open peer review for independent researchers. No APCs. ---

ICSAC — Institute for Complexity Science and Advanced Computing

> **Academic publishing is broken, and the gatekeepers know it.** Paywalls in front, four-figure APCs in back, opaque desk-rejects in the middle, plagiarism detectors that flag a researcher's *own* prior work as misconduct. ICSAC is the answer we built after the system told us no for the wrong reason.
## Why this exists A peer-reviewed paper from this lab was desk-rejected by a large commercial publisher's flagship journal on a 94% plagiarism flag — entirely from **self-overlap with the author's own prior open-access papers** on the same research program. Iterative thinking, properly cited, dressed up as misconduct by a content-matching tool and rubber-stamped by an editor who didn't read past the score. That is not peer review. That is liability-management automation wearing the costume of peer review. So we built the alternative in the open: - **5-reviewer AI panel** — five independent passes, full rubric, full reasoning, published. - **Review-Quality-Control audit** — a sixth pass that scores the panel itself. - **Human curator** — confirms, modifies, or overrides every recommendation. Name attached. - **The redacted review record is published alongside the accepted paper.** Receipts, in public. Prompts, rubrics, scoring code, citation verification, redaction layer, RQC audit — **published here, MIT-licensed**. Fork it. Audit it. Run it yourself. If we get something wrong, you can see exactly where.
## The journal — *Persistence* **Free to submit. Free to read. No APCs. Ever.** Accepted papers are published in **the annual *Persistence* volume — paperback + ebook**, plus a free, permanent online record of the full review trail. Authors retain copyright. First issue: **May 2027**. The review is the same for everyone — graduate student, garage researcher, lab without an open-access budget, tenured chair. The panel reads the manuscript, not the affiliation.

_{ORCID-gated, 5–10 day turnaround. DOI on accept via Zenodo. No fast-track for friends, no slow-walk for outsiders.}
## On Hugging Face

**[`editorial-system`](https://huggingface.co/spaces/ICSAC-Institute/editorial-system)** — the open-source AI editorial pipeline that receives, reviews, and adjudicates every submission to ICSAC and to *Persistence*. Submission handler, rubrics, prompts, citation checks, redaction layer, and the audit pass that scores the panel itself. _{One defensive exception: the prompt-injection signal in the RQC audit is withheld, to avoid teaching adversarial submissions what to evade. Everything else is in the open.}
## Affiliate with the Institute For independent researchers, postdocs between posts, retired scientists who never stopped working, and anyone whose work is real but whose letterhead is not. **Annual affiliation, $—/yr**, includes: - A verifiable **ICSAC ID** in the form `ICSAC-NNNNN`, listed in our public directory. - A **printable digital credential (PDF)** with a QR code that resolves to your public verification page at `icsacinstitute.org/verify/`. - The right to list **"Affiliate Researcher, ICSAC"** on your future works — papers, preprints, talks, conference proceedings — where appropriate and consistent with the venue's affiliation guidelines. - *Persistence* digest newsletter, discount on the annual print, eligibility for merit-based promotion to Research Fellow. Affiliation does **not** include review or curation rights — those are earned through demonstrated participation, not purchased.

## Where the rest lives - 🌐 **Institute site** → [icsacinstitute.org](https://icsacinstitute.org) - 📖 **Journal — *Persistence*** → [icsacinstitute.org/journal](https://icsacinstitute.org/journal) - 📄 **Accepted papers + review records** → [icsacinstitute.org/publications](https://icsacinstitute.org/publications) - ✉ **Submit a manuscript** (ORCID-gated, free) → [icsacinstitute.org/submit](https://icsacinstitute.org/submit) - 🪪 **Verify a member ID** → [icsacinstitute.org/verify](https://icsacinstitute.org/verify) - 🧪 **Zenodo deposits (DOIs)** → [zenodo.org/communities/icsac](https://zenodo.org/communities/icsac) - 🛠 **Source mirrors** → [github.com/ICSAC](https://github.com/ICSAC)
## Support the work ICSAC runs on bootstrap funding from [**3Rivers WebTech**](https://3riverswebtech.com) and direct contributions from people who think rigorous, accessible peer review is worth keeping alive outside the gatekept circuit. **No grants, no university overhead, no APCs — so the math has to come from somewhere.**

_{One-time donation • annual Supporter (name on /supporters) • annual Sponsor (logo + link). All run through Stripe at [icsacinstitute.org/community/donate](https://icsacinstitute.org/community/donate). ICSAC is not a registered 501(c)(3); contributions are not tax-deductible.}
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_{info@icsacinstitute.org
· Fort Wayne, IN
· Founded 2026}