Journal Peer Review: Cautious Innovation or Sleepy Giant?
Peer reviewed journal articles are one of the most important dissemination mechanism for researchers in nearly all fields of research. Peer reviewed articles also increasingly form the basis for evaluation of personal and organisational success. In this process, peer review plays a crucial role in selecting, redirecting and improving manuscripts. Given its importance, it is no surprise that peer review practices have been questioned and scrutinised. In response, innovations have been suggested or are being tried out, making journal peer review a set of surprisingly varied practices. However, research on the diffusion and effects of these innovations is rather limited.
We studied peer review practices among a wide range of journals. Our research describes and systematises current forms of peer review, in what kind of journals they are used, and how and why journals innovate their review practices. We also assessed to what extent these different forms are able to filter out problematic research by relating peer review forms to retraction rates.
We conclude that, even though there are good reasons to innovate, implementation of novel review forms is in fact very slow. With some exceptions, the peer review forms prevalent two decades ago are still mainstream today. In addition, in spite of peer review’s diversity, we observe surprisingly little differences between research fields. Considering that some review forms seem to be more capable of filtering out problematic research, our research offers suggestions for journal peer review improvement to editors and publishers.
