Science, trust, and preprints - what changes are needed?

tPreprints in the life sciences become more widespread, but concerns regarding their permanence often fuel misinformation and can erode public trust in science. Researchers working with preprints want to know which preprint version to cite, what changes have been made between a preprint and its published version, and whether conclusions presented in a preprint still stand after a preprint has been withdrawn. But changes to preprints can be difficult to track. Europe PMC is an open database that provides access to a large collection of biomedical preprints alongside peer reviewed publications. Europe PMC' Article Status Monitor is a tool that can alert researchers when a preprint is withdrawn or removed, published in a journal, or has a new version. However, diversity of practices regarding preprint versioning, withdrawals and removals, limits the utility of the tool. In this poster we highlight a number of challenges of the current preprinting process and propose some solutions to improve its transparency. This poster is presented at the Reproducibility, Replicability and Trust in Science 2022 conference.