Reimagining the future of peer review

Abstract

The scholarly publishing landscape is in a period of unprecedented transformation. Against the backdrop of international unrest and concerns around sustainability and climate change, publishing is facing its own set of unique challenges. The accelerated transition towards open science, the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of research and the emergence and rapid improvement of new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) are transforming the way that we discover, consume and perceive research outputs. Peer review remains a critical process at the very heart of the publishing process, and our most powerful tool for evaluating the rigor, credibility, and interest of scholarly research [1]. The first record of an editorial pre-publication peer review dates back to 1665 and to the journal “Philosophical Transactions” [2]. With a history of more than 350 years, the concept of peer review has remained relatively unchanged, but with so many significant changes within the wider publishing industry, visible signs of strain are starting to emerge in the peer review workflow.