The peer review system no longer works to guarantee academic rigour - a different approach is needed

By Stephen Pinfield, Professor of Information Services Management, University of Sheffield
Kathryn Zeiler, Nancy Barton Scholar and Professor of Law, Boston University
Ludo Waltman, Professor of Quantitative Science Studies, Leiden University

Peer review is a central feature of academic work. It’s the process through which research ends up published in an academic journal: independent experts scrutinise the work of another researcher in order to recommend if it should be accepted by a publisher and if and how it should be improved.

Peer review is often assumed to guarantee quality, but it doesn’t always work well in practice. Every academic has their own peer-review horror stories, ranging from years-long delays to multiple tedious rounds of revisions. The cycle continues until the article is accepted somewhere or until…

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