How Many Papers Should Scientists Be Reviewing? An Analysis Using Verified Peer Review Reports

Vincent Raoult
Additional contact information
Vincent Raoult: School of Environment and Life Sciences, University of Newcastle, Ourimbah, NSW 2258, Australia

Publications, 2020, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: The current peer review system is under stress from ever increasing numbers of publications, the proliferation of open-access journals and an apparent difficulty in obtaining high-quality reviews in due time. At its core, this issue may be caused by scientists insufficiently prioritising reviewing. Perhaps this low prioritisation is due to a lack of understanding on how many reviews need to be conducted by researchers to balance the peer review process. I obtained verified peer review data from 142 journals across 12 research fields, for a total of over 300,000 reviews and over 100,000 publications, to determine an estimate of the numbers of reviews required per publication per field. I then used this value in relation to the mean numbers of authors per publication per field to highlight a ‘review ratio’: the expected minimum number of publications an author in their field should review to balance their input (publications) into the peer review process. On average, 3.49 ± 1.45 (SD) reviews were required for each scientific publication, and the estimated review ratio across all fields was 0.74 ± 0.46 (SD) reviews per paper published per author. Since these are conservative estimates, I recommend scientists aim to conduct at least one review per publication they produce. This should ensure that the peer review system continues to function as intended.

Keywords: peer review; reviewers; publication; journal; authors; manuscript (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A2 D83 L82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/8/1/4/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/8/1/4/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jpubli:v:8:y:2020:i:1:p:4-:d:311137

Access Statistics for this article

Publications is currently edited by Ms. Jennifer Zhang

More articles in Publications from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().