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  • CAREER FEATURE

Stop the peer-review treadmill. I want to get off

Faced with a deluge of papers, journal editors are struggling to find willing peer reviewers.
  1. Amber Dance

    1. Amber Dance is a freelance science journalist in the Los Angeles area.

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In November 2022, health economist Chris Sampson found himself in desperate need of a hero. As associate editor for Frontiers in Health Services, he’d been trying to get a paper reviewed since April. He’d sent out about 150 invitations to potential reviewers and received four reviews, but only one of sufficient quality to be useful. Sampson, who works at the Office of Health Economics, a research and consultancy company based in London, needed two more good reviews, so he tweeted: “I need a #peerreview hero … Heroes, DM me.”

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Nature 614, 581-583 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00403-8

References

  1. Publons. 2018 Global State of Peer Review (Publons, 2018).

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  2. Aczel, B., Szaszi, B. & Holcombe, A. O. Res. Integrity Peer Review 6, 14 (2021).

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  3. Hayes, M. & Hardcastle, J. Grant Review in Focus. (Publons, 2019).

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  4. Schulz, R. et al. BMC Res. Notes 15, 203 (2022).

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  5. Carneiro, C. F. D. et al. BMC Res. Integrity Peer Rev. 5, 16 (2020).

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