(Charlottesville, VA) October 8, 2026 - Silverchair and Prophy Inc. today announced that Prophy's Referee Finder is now available to ScholarOne Manuscripts clients through the Silverchair Universe program, with each recommendation carrying the reasoning behind it: semantic proximity to the manuscript, conflict-of-interest flags derived from co-authorship and co-affiliation history, and the candidate's own publication record. Reviewer search happens inside ScholarOne, and the editor decides.
The gap it addresses is widening. Submission volumes keep climbing while the hours available for peer review do not move. Editors are rarely short of names. They are short of the right names: unconflicted, reachable, with contact details in hand, found in minutes.
Prophy was built for that problem and nothing else. Founded in 2018 by physics professors, it maintains profiles for more than 100 million published researchers and reads each manuscript against a scientific ontology of 170,000 concepts that Prophy builds and maintains itself, rather than matching keywords or querying a general-purpose index. The same engine runs grant review for national and international funding agencies, where a reviewer recommendation has to survive an appeal — which is why the reasoning is exposed rather than summarised.
"Publishers have been asking us for this for years," said Prof. Oleg Ruchayskiy, CEO and co-founder of Prophy. "We are grateful to Silverchair's team for the work that made this integration possible inside ScholarOne. Now, participating publishers can simply switch it on."
“Finding qualified, available reviewers has become one of the biggest bottlenecks in peer review,” said Hannah Heckner Swain, VP of Strategic Partnerships & Platforms at Silverchair. “Through Prophy’s Universe program integration, ScholarOne publishers have a highly targeted and useful tool in addressing this challenge, alleviating a significant burden on editors.”
Current ScholarOne Manuscripts clients can learn more by reaching out to their account manager.
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About Prophy
Prophy Inc. was founded in 2018 by physics professors to bring scientific rigour to research assessment. Its platform supports millions of confidential evaluations a year for commercial publishers, learned societies, university presses and public research funders across more than 30 countries, including top commercial and society publishers. www.prophy.ai · [email protected]
About Silverchair
Silverchair is the leading independent platform partner for scholarly and professional publishers, serving our growing community through flexible technology and unparalleled services. Our teams build, maintain, and innovate platforms across the publishing lifecycle—from idea to impact. Our products facilitate submission, peer review, hosting, dissemination, and impact measurement, enabling researchers and professionals to maximize their contributions to our world.
www.silverchair.com