Peer review has long been regarded as the sine qua non of academic rigour and integrity. An editor or funding body approaches subject experts to advise them on the qualities and weaknesses of a particular article, book or grant proposal. On the face of it, the system has its merits. A second, third or even fourth pair of eyes can not only offer specialist insight but spot errors or instances of plagiarism, saving a journal, book publisher or funder potential embarrassment (though the system is far from failsafe). When peer review works well, an author stands to benefit too: feedback — however uncomfortable it might feel to offer one’s work up for judgement — can make for a better piece of writing. And there is greater kudos to be gained from publishing a journal article that has passed the scrutiny of one’s peers than from being invited to submit a chapter to an edited volume of conference proceedings.
But today, the system is creaking, even almost on the verge of collapse. Academics continue to be advised to “publish or perish”, even if in today’s academic climate it is perfectly possible to “perish” however impressive one’s list of publications. In some disciplines, journal editors are struggling to cope with the volume of manuscripts coming their way, at precisely the moment when academics are becoming increasingly chary about acting as reviewers. In the sciences in particular, the consequences can be serious, the journal Nature reporting last week that, “As pressure on the system grows, many researchers point to low-quality or error-strewn research appearing in journals as an indictment of their peer-review systems failing to uphold rigour.”
Though I have often felt embarrassed to hear my fellow academics lament that they work harder than anyone else in the world — a claim that hardly stands up if you know any doctors, barristers or people who run large organisations — it is easy to see why they might be tiring of taking on peer review. It is a “service” role that is usually unremunerated. (Journal publishing is a particularly weird world where neither the editor, nor the author, nor the reviewer is paid, yet the member of the public who wants to read a non-open-access article is charged a small fortune.) It is also often time-consuming, of little interest to one’s employer (and thus not accounted for in one’s “workload plan”), and of almost no benefit to one’s CV. As academics are increasingly burdened with excessive quantities of pointless yet inescapable administration, on top of their teaching and research duties, it stands to reason that peer review should be the first sacrifice. Certainly nobody redundancy has shunted into the “independent scholar” bracket should be being called upon to undertake this “gentlemanly work” for nothing. And yet, without willing volunteers, the entire academic publication and grant system would grind to a halt.
The peer-review system is also flawed in other ways. The process is usually ostensibly “blind” — the author who submits an article to a journal does not know the identity of the reviewer and vice versa. But this notion of anonymity is often a façade, at least in one direction. Within some disciplines, the number of scholars in a particular field can be tiny and everyone knows what everyone else is working on. Otherwise, a quick google of recent conference papers can swiftly reveal an author’s identity. This creates a power imbalance where a reviewer knows exactly whose work they are critiquing, safe in the knowledge that their own anonymity is protected.
And, unfortunately, peer review can be downright nasty. It is a role that comes with responsibility — one has to bear in mind the young academic submitting their first article, for whom a scathing review from the notorious “Reviewer 2” can be devastating — and yet plenty abuse it. While bad research does need to be robustly critiqued, and this is not, and should not be, a forum in which “everyone’s a winner”, there are ways and means of delivering bad news. The worst peer reviewers make the process all about themselves, using the process as a way of displaying their own superiority and playing out petty professional rivalries, decades in the making. Some take offence when you have either strayed on to “their patch” or, conversely, failed to mention their work; others are offhand, caustic, even cruel.
I have … received lazy reviews that were short, sloppy and uninterested
Unfortunately, the peer reviewer holds all the cards: they act as gatekeepers to what gets published and funded. In their recommendations for revisions, they may seek to impose their arguments on your article or funding proposal. If they do not like your perspective — or your perceived politics — they can declare your project entirely unpublishable or unfundable. Over twenty five years of academic publishing, I have received a great deal of constructive criticism that has genuinely improved my work, and some reviews so generous and glowing I have wished I could write to the reviewer to offer thanks. But I have also received lazy reviews that were short, sloppy and uninterested, and one shockingly offensive ad hominem review that purposely sought to spike my proposed publication (and trash my reputation) because of my perfectly reasonable refusal to subscribe to a particular fashionable ideology.
One would hope that a reasonable editor, faced with two excellent reviews and one that is toxic, could take an executive decision to override the latter, though journal policies on this vary. But in a highly competitive funding competition, one bad review will automatically send an application to the reject pile. The risks of all this to academic originality and to diversity of viewpoints are obvious. So what is to be done? The only way to incentivise reviewers, first, is surely to give them at least some token compensation for their time. But I also wonder whether we should consider having an open system where reviewers’ (though not authors’) identities are revealed. Perhaps it is time for a robust but respectful exchange of intellectual ideas, in which reviewers have to stand by their comments rather than being allowed to lurk in the shadows spewing insults like social media trolls.
