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How do we improve peer review?

February 28, 2023

Research Information

David Stuart speaks to experts in research integrity about some of the challenges facing peer review

"Peer review has evolved over the past 300 years to become the bedrock of today’s scholarly publishing system. When a researcher downloads an article from a reputable peer-reviewed journal, it is typically approached with a level of trust  – the reader believes that it will have been validated by an expert in the same field as the original author.



Peer review is not perfect, and most scholars will have some personal experience of its limitations. Nevertheless, it is generally considered the best way we currently have to ensure the validity of research."

Transparency in conducting and reporting research: A survey of authors, reviewers, and editors across scholarly disciplines

March 8, 2023

PLOS ONE

By Mario Malički, IJsbrand Jan Aalbersberg, Lex Bouter, Adrian Mulligan, Gerben ter Riet

"Calls have been made for improving transparency in conducting and reporting research, improving work climates, and preventing detrimental research practices. To assess attitudes and practices regarding these topics, we sent a survey to authors, reviewers, and editors. We received 3,659 (4.9%) responses out of 74,749 delivered emails. We found no significant differences between authors’, reviewers’, and editors’ attitudes towards transparency in conducting and reporting research, or towards their perceptions of work climates. Undeserved authorship was perceived by all groups as the most prevalent detrimental research practice, while fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, and not citing prior relevant research, were seen as more prevalent by editors than authors or reviewers."