September 10th marks the beginning of Peer Review Week 2018, the latest annual celebration of peer reviewing and its importance in maintaining standards of quality and integrity in research and scientific communication. The week’s official activities include webinars and workshops devoted to this year’s theme: Diversity in Peer Review.
One of the organizing partners of this year’s observance is Publons, a Clarivate Analytics company and the peer review platform for researchers, committed to advancing the practice of peer review. Having registered more than 450,000 scholars worldwide, Publons has enabled researchers to easily import, track, and verify their previously-hidden review and editorial contributions. This powerful evidence of expertise can be used by researchers in their CVs, and in promotion and funding applications.
Publons also offers instruction in peer reviewing to early-career researchers via its “Publons Academy,” and confers annual awards for distinguished achievement among its community of reviewers.
Publons’ global Peer Review Awards for 2018 cover the four existing categories, with one new addition: Along with recognizing the “top 1% of reviewers in their fields,” the “top quality reviewers,” the “top reviewers for top journals,” and the “top handling editors,” a new prize honors achievement in peer review by early-career researchers (defined as those within five years of their PhD or MD qualification.)
All reviewers registered with Publons are eligible for the awards; those with an interest in competing should update their profiles with their latest reviews and editorial manuscripts by the closing date for this year’s prizes, September 1.
All reviewers registered with Publons are eligible for the awards; those with an interest in competing should update their profiles with their latest reviews and editorial manuscripts by the closing date for this year’s prizes, September 1.
In anticipation of Peer Review Week and the next batch of awards, Publons recently talked with some winners of the 2017 prizes, recording their thoughts about their own experiences, best practices in reviewing, and what diversity in peer review means to them. Below are a few excerpts from selected interviews with these “sentinels of science.”
Maria Bostenaru Dan, a Research Scientist in Urban and Landscape Design at Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism in Bucharest, Romania, has twice been selected by Publons as a top reviewer in her field. “Peer review helps spot any points that are unclear or have been missed by the authors, who are sometimes too deeply involved in their research,” she notes. “A review is much more important than just saying whether the paper is acceptable or not – and it should be constructive, not critical.”
Dan, whose academic career has involved stints throughout Europe and in Canada, has a special sensitivity to diversity. “I very much welcome diversity,” she says. “I am myself from a national minority in my own country (double even; I am 50% Romanian and 25% German and 25% Hungarian, and peers tend to see me as Hungarian in Romania and as foreign in Germany and Hungary) and so I’m very aware of what the term means.” In addition to advancing the interests of women in science, Dan strives to address bias in peer review. “For example, the prestige of a good university tends to positively bias a paper from a researcher from that university,” she says. “I’ve seen it myself: When I was affiliated in Germany, although very young, I had more chances of being accepted. This wasn’t the case in Italy and it was even more difficult in Romania.”
Peer review helps spot any points that are unclear or have been missed by the authors, who are sometimes too deeply involved in their research… A review is much more important than just saying whether the paper is acceptable or not – and it should be constructive, not critical.”
– Maria Bostenaru Dan, Research Scientist in Urban and Landscape Design at Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism, Bucharest, Romania
Ana-Maria Florea, Scientific Officer at the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, Berlin, has won six previous Publons awards and completed more than 400 reviews for 30 different academic journals over the last couple of years.
Of diversity, she observes, “In my opinion ‘peer review’ is almost a guarantee of quality assurance and relevance of a certain study for the scientific community. The diversity of the reviewers (who have, for instance, different scientific and cultural backgrounds and levels of experience), ensures the effectiveness in identifying research that might have an impact in the scientific community. The skills, attitudes, conduct, and cultural background influence the review outcome, despite the varying expectations among reviewers and editors, and those in different areas of scientific disciplines. Thus, diversity will improve peer review!”
Last, a particularly expansive view of diversity is offered by developmental psychologist Sue Fletcher-Watson of the University of Edinburgh, UK. She was the top peer reviewer for her institution in 2017, and also won distinction as the top peer reviewer for the journal Autism.
On the overall value of peer review, Fletcher-Watson is emphatic, especially in her own specialty area: “Pseudoscience really plagues the autism community,” she says, “and peer review is one of the few bastions we have to defend ourselves against exploitative and scare-mongering quackery.”
And on diversity, she proposes that expanding peer review beyond the traditional contributions of academic specialists could benefit research: “I work closely with people in the autistic community in my research and I feel that a lot of research in that field would be improved if autistic people, family members of autistic children and practitioners from relevant services – education, health and social care – had a chance to comment on the work we do as academics.
“Inviting community representatives to get involved in peer review would have a few benefits. One is that it would trigger a conversation about the purpose of review. Journals might have to be more explicit about the function of different reviews being sought from different people. A ‘respect review’ or ‘personal perspective’ might be sought from a person from the same population as the one being studied – like a cancer patient for a report on a trial of a new drug treatment.”
Inviting community representatives to get involved in peer review would have a few benefits. One is that it would trigger a conversation about the purpose of review… A ‘respect review’ or ‘personal perspective’ might be sought from a person from the population being studied – like a cancer patient for a report on a trial of a new drug treatment.”
– Sue Fletcher-Watson, Developmental Psychologist, Patrick Wild Centre of theUniversity of Edinburgh, UK
While acknowledging the many challenges posed by instituting these new categories of reviews, Fletcher-Watson clearly believes in the possibilities, noting that such reviews “would provide valuable contextual information for the original research and help to make academic output more relevant to people’s lives.”
This year’s Peer Review Week is certain to bring similar wide-ranging discussion to the topic, along with the distinction of the Publons Awards to the most accomplished practitioners. (Learn more about the awards here.)
