Researchers show loyalty to peer review but want a lot more from it

Preliminary results of an international survey of authors and reviewers on what they think about peer review and its future was released today at the British Science Festival. Called the Peer Review Survey 2009, it is developed by Sense About Science, a UK registered charity, in consultation with editors and publishers and with grant from Elsevier.

According to the survey, 90% say they participate in peer review because of its role in the community while 84% respondents believed that without peer review there would be no control in scientific communication. However, almost 80% researchers expect review to detect fraud and misconduct.

About 73% said that technological advances have made it easier to do a thorough job than five years ago. Whilst 86% enjoy reviewing, 56% say there is a lack of guidance on how to review; 68% think formal training would help.

Some said peer review is unsustainable because of too few willing reviewers. On average, reviewers turn down two papers a year. As much as 61% of reviewers have rejected an invitation to review an article in the last year, citing lack of expertise as the main reason.

Interestingly, over half of reviewers think receiving a payment in kind (e.g. subscription) would make them more likely to review; but this drops to just 2.5% if the author had to cover the cost. Acknowledgement in the journal is the most popular option.

Peer review is fundamental to integration of new research findings and allows researchers to analyse findings and society at large to weigh up research claims. It results in 1.3 million learned articles published every year, and it is growing rapidly with the expansion of the global research community, according to the survey.

Sense About Science embarked on promoting understanding of peer review following concerns about getting the next generation of researchers to review in sufficient numbers, about maintaining the system’s integrity and whether it can be truly globalised; and also new ideas - about alternative quality measures, technologies to prevent plagiarism, rewarding reviewers and training them.

The survey also suggest that while researchers agree that peer review is well understood by the scientific community only one third believe the public understands the term.

Irene Hames, author 'Peer Review and Manuscript Management in Scientific Journals- guidelines for good practice' said that the survey proved the importance researchers attach to peer review but warned: ”That is not to say there aren't problems - there clearly are, and improvements and innovative solutions are needed. Crucial in this is the need to professionalize this area of activity, which too often is put in the hands of people who may have great academic reputations and research expertise, but no experience of running a peer-review system.”

The full findings and the report are due to be published in November 2009.