info:doi/10.1038/440408c 2006-03-23T00:00:00Z 2006-03-23T00:00:00Z Henning Bauch © 2006 Nature Publishing Group Nature 440 7083 408 408 0028-0836 1476-4679 (?-mix:\s+\W+|\W+\s+|\s+|\/) authors referees not but has been peer-review field high star 2006 439 way work will nanotechnology see those people process research ensure quality Nature rejected publisher immediate reveal publishing dependent recent place editor's submitted procedures issue important Unlike makes discussion one's affiliations ensures 118 patents scientists unfairly their responsibility Despite notorious link fairest Jan advantage story system authorships available lobbying refereeing disadvantages lies unveiled compared all Clearly 439782b Whether growing career many peers most author assessment fair offer sciences big-shot number one best Hendrik Earth bit necessary had cheats temptation Withholding instant alike both highest-ranked public have cases stop sake 10.1038 showcase my central treated personal institutions jobs Schön's beckon cheat Correspondence if hence fumble only must stem-cell can authors. until names lucrative identities little first aura improve journals I fraud genetics manuscript outside current individual accepted submissions significant permanent where finally Korean weakest 782 believing overlook remains basic actually submission blinded some said prevent extremely 784 therefore Three data rewards include about understandable addressed Sir frauds factors bias publication few failed favouring who cheers anonymous relatively editors pressure referee believe But (?-mix:\.\s+(?=[A-Z])) But who ensures the quality of the referees and the refereeing process? Clearly, it is the editor's responsibility to overlook lobbying by authors and referees alike and to improve procedures if necessary to ensure fair assessment of all submissions, not favouring those from "star" authors I believe it is best for the publisher not to reveal authors' names or affiliations to the referee until the submitted manuscript has been accepted or finally rejected In the most notorious recent cases (the Korean stem-cell work and Jan Hendrik Schön's nanotechnology work), the peer-review system must be said to have failed, as the frauds were unveiled by people from outside the immediate process Sir In the current discussion about fraud (see Correspondence, Nature 439 , 782 – 784 ; 2006 10.1038/439782b ), the important issue of what actually makes people cheat in the first place has not been addressed The pressure on the relatively few permanent jobs available to a growing number of scientists in this field is therefore high, and hence the rewards of publishing in the highest-ranked journals are extremely significant for one's career The temptation to fumble with the data a bit for the sake of the story, or to include a big-shot author as a showcase, is understandable Unlike nanotechnology and genetics research, where lucrative patents can beckon, my field of Earth sciences has little to offer but basic research in public institutions Were the referees the weakest link, and were both the editors and the referees blinded by the aura of the authorships? Despite some disadvantages, anonymous peer-review remains the fairest way to prevent publication bias (see "Three cheers for peers" Nature 439 , 118 ; 2006 ) Whether an individual cheats and lies is dependent on many factors, but instant personal advantage is the central one Withholding the authors' identities in this way will not only ensure high quality, but will stop rejected authors from believing that their submission had been treated unfairly compared with those of "star" authors. 0