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‘Twenty years down the line, we’ll be arguing the same points unless we bring about change’

On Thursday 14^th September, we gathered at the Francis Crick Institute to explore the meaning and impact of ‘Transparency in Peer Review’ – the theme of this year’s Peer Review Week.

Leading the discussion on defining transparency was Sabina Alam, Editorial Director, F1000 Platforms; Robert Kiley, Head of Open Research, Wellcome; Meghan Larin, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The Francis Crick Institute; and Philippa Matthews, Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Fellow, University of Oxford, and chaired by Ananyo Bhattacharya, Science Correspondent at The Economist.

This was a thought-provoking session that raised many valuable points and identified the challenges that remain to be overcome for a fairer model or peer review. I will focus on one of the main arguments that arose.

Time for a revolution

Sabina Alam, Phillipa Matthews and Meghan Larin expressed all too familiar frustrations with the current, ‘archaic’ model of peer review, in particular having your work rejected with no explanation as to why with no idea who reviewed it.

“Who are the people making the decisions and what expertise do they have?” asked Sabina Alam, explaining that this is in part what drove her to enter the publishing realm to look behind the scenes and better understand the process.

Down with hierarchy

There is an academic hierarchy. The researchers at the top have achieved top status and are free to choose where they will publish. It is no fun for those at the bottom, the junior researchers, who must go ‘journal shopping’ before their hard work sees the light of day.

Journal shopping has become a familiar term among junior colleagues, describing their difficulty to get their research reviewed and accepted. Larin explained how this disadvantages early career researchers and lengthens the publishing process – sometimes as long as two years.

Of course, the impact factor and journal hierarchy raised its ugly head, in a discussion on the difficulties for junior researchers who feel they should follow the same trajectory as their supervisors, publishing in top-tiered high impact journals to progress up the career ladder.

What will you be when you grow up?

You’re reviewing an article and find that there is room for improvement. The research isn’t sound and you know you should reject the article. On the other hand, you’re a fledgling just embarking on your academic journey. Your future career could be affected by this review. What should solely be a judgement based an article’s own merit and soundness, becomes a personal dilemma of considerable magnitude.

Meghan Larin explained that she is intimidated, and fears rejecting an article in case of hefty repercussions. As a junior researcher, she is nervous to voice her opinion, and will only feel ‘safe’ to speak her mind once she has reached tenure. Until then, it is a difficult passage to navigate, and like many other junior researchers, she is worried that a review could negatively impact her prospects of funding and could possibly prevent building future collaborations.

Training

Reams has been written on the lack of training in peer review, so we’ll keep this point brief. Co-reviewing is a useful way to learn, with some supervisors discussing and reviewing articles alongside  more junior researchers. The problem comes with co-signing. Not all publishers credit junior researchers so they are not acknowledged for their work.

More training and mentoring on peer review would be beneficial. There are already some courses available, but more support should be given.

No hiding in the shadows

We have FAIR principles for research, and the same should apply to peer review, argued Philippa Matthews. Not only should reviews be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reproducible, they should be rewarded.

Open peer review is a relatively new model, and one that is constructive, measured and thoughtful. All reviews are visible, both positive and negative. The benefit of this increased transparency is that it holds reviewers to account and they must justify their reasoning for accepting or rejecting an article. They should provide constructive feedback, which the researchers can use to improve their study.

‘It’s what you discover, not where you publish’, said Robert, explaining how Wellcome have put words into action with Wellcome Open Research platform. A model that gives credit where credit is due, as each review given a citation and DOI, which researchers can add to their academic portfolio.

The best model

During the debate, chair Ananyo Bhattacharya asked who is happy with the current peer review models. No one raised their hand.

“Twenty years down the line, we’ll still be arguing the same points unless we bring about change”, warned Sabina Alam. We need to change the current mindset.

We can slowly make our way to a model where articles are judged on merit and away from a system reliant on flawed metrics.

As Philippa Matthews argued, we should be using the cleanest, open and best model and must not be afraid to change the shape of peer review.

You can find a summary of the evening’s discussion with our Storify.