Peer Review Week is dedicated to discussing all things peer review, and this year’s theme focuses on peer review and the future of publishing.

Understanding how peer review can support developments in the wider academic and scholarly publishing community, and how peer review practices need to evolve to keep pace with them, are central to this year’s theme.

In honor of Peer Review Week, we spoke to Kelly Woods, F1000 Senior Associate Publisher, and Guillaume Wright, F1000 Publisher, to get their thoughts on this topic.

So, before we get into the future of peer review, where exactly did this practice come from?

Kelly: Peer review began as the practice of ‘refereeing’ at the Royal Society in 1832, wherein a select pool of trusted Society members were asked to independently evaluate manuscripts prior to publication.

However, peer review as we know it today was not adopted at scale by the publishing industry until the 1970s.

Since then, as peer review became widespread, it has continued to change over time – particularly with the advent of the internet, which digitized the process of sending and reviewing manuscripts, significantly accelerating peer review practices.

Kelly, you mentioned that peer review has continued to change, so what are the different forms of peer review we often see in scholarly publishing?

Kelly: Since technology has advanced, it has allowed for much more variety in the format and structure of peer review. In fact, one 2017 study found that there were 22 different forms of peer review in place across scientific publishing.

Traditionally, peer review was fully anonymous and fully closed, with author and reviewer names unknown to the other party, and all oversight done by the editor.

Now, both factors exist on a sliding scale. You can have fully open peer review, where both authors and reviewer identities are known, or single-anonymous, double-anonymous, triple-anonymous, and even quadruple-anonymous peer review.

While STEM disciplines were quicker to move towards open review, Humanities and Social Sciences disciplines have begun to move in this direction, with a variety of offerings across all subject areas.

All of these peer review practices are common in the industry, but what is the common thread tying them together? What benefits does peer review itself bring?

Gui: Peer review is the main mechanism for the validation and improvement of research, which plays a key role as a signal of trust and quality in that work to other stakeholders, including the public.

It also brings a number of other benefits to the research ecosystem. For example, it can support future collaborations, training and development of early career researchers, and provide opportunities to innovate within scholarly communications.

It’s clear that peer review can still have an important role to play. However, it’s also widely accepted that peer review practices have their own challenges. What would you say the primary challenges are?

Gui: I would say that one of the main issues we currently face in peer review is the proliferation of publication volume.

This, coupled with competing pressures on researchers’ time and the fact that a paper can be reviewed multiple times at various publishing venues before finally being published, has led to reviewer fatigue and a burden on the research system.

Additionally, there’s no consistent or scalable system of recognition or reward for undertaking peer review. When combined with the unintended consequences of the current system of recognition and career progression within academia, this is increasingly leading to more integrity and ethics issues, such as paper mills.

As well as being a burden to the researchers, this undermines the rigor of the process and the trust in published outputs, and in some cases, can slow down the process of publishing work

In light of these challenges, what do you view as the future of peer review? And what do you feel needs to happen to get to this?

Gui: I think it’s important that peer review remains predominantly in the hands of the research community, but supported by new tools, processes, and innovations which will reduce the burden on researchers whilst maintaining quality and rigor.

This can mean diversifying our approaches to peer review and tailoring it to better match different research outputs – not all outputs require the same level or style of peer review, for example Study Protocol review compared to traditional Research Articles.

Embracing this variety of approaches could include open peer review, collaborative peer review, and preprint peer review.

Additionally, I think it’s important to improve training, resources, and support for those undertaking peer review and introduce equitable and scalable systems to recognize and credit those involved in the process.

Finally, I think it’s important for publishers and other stakeholders to come together to improve standardization across the industry to help make the system easier and more effective for the research community.

You mentioned open peer review as one of the examples of broadening our approach to peer review and it has also been highlighted by the Council Conclusions and CoARA. What exactly is open peer review?

Kelly: Open peer review is just one format of peer review, and there are lots of varieties of open review practices, so not all open peer review looks the same.

Open practices can include:

• Open identities: Authors and reviewers are aware of each other’s identities.
• Open reports: Review reports are published alongside the relevant article.
• Open participation: The wider scholarly community can contribute to the review process.
• Open interaction: Direct reciprocal discussion between author(s) and reviewers, and/or between reviewers, is allowed and encouraged.
• Open pre-print manuscripts: Manuscripts are made immediately available (e.g., via pre-print servers like arXiv) in advance of any formal peer review procedures.
• Open final version commenting: Reviewing or commenting on final “version of record” publications.
• Open platforms (“decoupled review”): Review is facilitated by a different organizational entity than the venue of publication.

How can publishing platforms like Open Research Europe help overcome the challenges in peer review and help meet the needs of future publishing?

Kelly: It’s important that peer review continues to evolve to meet ongoing changes across the publishing industry, and innovative peer review practices are key.

One way that Open Research Europe seeks to meet future publishing needs is through our peer review model.

Peer review at Open Research Europe is:

• Post publication, with articles being published before peer review
• Fully open, with reviewer identities, affiliations, and reports being published alongside articles
• Applied across all outputs, including non-traditional article types such as Method Articles, Data Notes, Study Protocols, and more, and focuses on the soundness of science over author reputation or new developments.
• Collaborative, with editors and authors working together to identify appropriate reviewers

This can help overcome the challenges we previously identified in a number of ways.

Accelerating research

One of the key benefits of post-publication peer review for academic research is its ability to speed up publishing times and subsequently accelerate research impact and discoveries.

Post-publication peer review allows research to be viewed and cited immediately, while signalling that the article is awaiting review by experts in the field.

This is key for many research areas, when lengthy delays in traditional publishing models can reduce the impact of urgent research, but especially so in rapidly developing global situations.

Additionally, being open and transparent across the peer review process gives readers greater insight, with visibility of expert opinions and possible limitations of a study to inform their own future discoveries.

Improving feedback and experience of peer review

One concern that many researchers have with current peer review practices due to the capacity for reviewer bias when done behind closed doors, and the capacity for (potentially) unduly negative feedback.

Open peer review seeks to remedy these issues to improve the scholarly publishing experience and to improve published research.

Transparency in the peer review process adds accountability and credit to the reviewers by publicizing their names and reviews. As a result, trials have shown that open reports tend to be more constructive, resulting in more impactful and higher quality research, and an overall more positive experience for authors.

Authors are also aware of who is reviewing their articles, which can help build the author’s trust in the feedback they receive and confirm the reviewer’s expertise.

Reducing the burden on the research community and demonstrating value

A focus on sound research over novelty or author reputation, as well as post-publication peer review, can reduce the overall reviewing burden on the community.

Additionally, Open Research Europe supports co-reviewing opportunities, wherein early career researchers can co-review an article alongside a more senior individual, providing training and development opportunities.

As all peer review reports are published openly, each report can be independently cited, helping to support wider recognition of peer review as a valued and collaborative activity, and demonstrating participation in additional academic activity in line with reforms in research assessment.

Peer reviewing with Open Research Europe

Fostering an open peer review model with transparency at the core of the model is increasing in popularity in academic publishing practices, and Open Research Europe is proud to be at the leading the charge into the future of peer review.

If you’d like to be part of the change, you can learn more about peer review at Open Research Europe and why you should review on the platform.