Jim Curtiss, Communications Officer at Global Young Academy, explains how Open Research Europe addresses the current ‘peer review crisis’. 

A recent article on Inside Higher ED titled “The Peer Review Crisis” addressed some of the traditional challenges of peer-review, which relies on unpaid volunteers, and notes that some journal editors are facing a serious shortage of reviewers. To address this shortage, the article points at solutions such as limiting the number of revise-and-resubmits an article can undergo, and even suggests compensating reviewers.  

Open access publishing venues such as Open Research Europe operate under a fully open, transparent, and author led peer review process, offering several benefits to encourage reviewers. 

The main benefit for reviewers on Open Research Europe is that they are given explicit credit for their work. This means that the peer review report is openly published, including the name and affiliation of the reviewer. This allows readers (including colleagues, employers, and potential funders) to recognize their contributions. 

The author-led element of the peer review model allows authors to feel confident that the invited reviewers have the correct expertise. It also helps to reduce the number of irrelevant review invitations that researchers receive. At Open Research Europe, we employ stringent conflict of interest checks on all author suggested peer reviewers to prevent any inappropriate conduct in the peer review process. The names and institutions of the reviews are also published alongside the paper making it obvious if there was any unidentified potential conflict of interest, such as researchers being based at the same institution or having worked together recently on a previous paper or grant. 

“The open peer review model means both authors and reader can see that the review was fair and constructive. During our webinar earlier this year, Dr Emma Norris, Community Gateway Advisor for Psychology, shared her thoughts on the peer review model, explaining that the open and transparent process allows readers to not only see the evolution of published papers, but also how the articles have improved with peer review. While this approach to peer review does not fully solve the so-called ‘peer review crisis’, it is a clear step in the right direction.”

Kelly Woods, Senior Associate Publisher, Open Research Europe.  

A further benefit that Open Research Europe offers peer reviewers is to assign a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to the peer review report, which makes the reports more visible and discoverable and makes them citable, independently from the article, thereby allowing even more recognition. Other benefits of open peer review include: 

• Enabling conversation within the research community with fully transparent peer review 
• Reducing the possibility of bias, as everything is openly available to all 
• Accelerating the pace of discovery by publishing research before it undergoes peer review 

These innovations by Open Research Europe align with what researchers increasingly seem to be seeking from the peer review process. A 2018 survey by Publons, a website where authors can follow their academic contributions, found that both greater transparency in the review process (60% of those surveyed), as well as greater recognition (89% of those surveyed) would improve the quality of the peer review process. 

To date, Open Research Europe has received over 650 peer review reports on articles, and 133 of the published papers have passed peer review.  Before publication, authors must propose reviewers to be contacted, ensuring only appropriate reviewers, with the right expertise are invited. In turn, this provides authors with a thorough and constructive review process. Find out why you should review for Open Research Europe.