{"id":867,"date":"2017-09-11T04:36:45","date_gmt":"2017-09-11T04:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/is-paid-peer-review-a-good-idea\/"},"modified":"2025-04-05T07:09:12","modified_gmt":"2025-04-05T07:09:12","slug":"peer-reviewing-a-duty-to-the-academic-community-or-a-thankless-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/peer-reviewing-a-duty-to-the-academic-community-or-a-thankless-job","title":{"rendered":"Is paid peer review a good idea?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s Note: This post was originally published in 2014 and has been refreshed for Peer Review Week 2017.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The peer review system<\/a> has been the cornerstone of scientific publishing for centuries. Most reputed journals use peer review as they believe it assures some form of quality control in the scientific literature.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover, even the general public may often hold academic papers in high regard because they know that the papers have been through some kind of objective check before getting published, even if they can\u2019t describe the <\/span><\/span><\/span>peer review<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span> process.<\/span><\/span><\/span> Even though the purpose of peer review as a gatekeeper for research is undisputed, peer review is not without its own set of problems such as reviewers\u2019 bias, plagiarism, personal or professional jealousy, etc.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Peer review has many unseen costs directly related to publication of articles, even though there are usually no monetary transactions involved in the process. The main costs have to do with time: time spent by the journal editors in arranging peer review and of course the time devoted by the peer reviewers in reviewing articles. Reviewing a single article can take a day! The unpaid cost of peer review is estimated to be over \u00a31.9 billion a year.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A vital, and often overlooked, aspect of peer review is that in the current system, peer reviewers are normally not paid for their work. They are, instead, rewarded non-financially by means of acknowledgment in journals, positions on editorial boards, free journal access, discounts on author fees, etc. Associating with reputed journals that include the names of reviewers as their \u2018elite\u2019 contributors is a major incentive for the reviewers. Moreover, the opportunity to be a part of intellectually enriching professional debates and acting as a gatekeeper of science is another motivational factor. Thus, social obligation, intellectual contribution, and reputation seem to be the motivational aspects of the traditional peer review mechanism. This is also rewarding for the reviewers in their career progression when their contribution to the academic community is considered. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

However, an increasing number of reviewers feel that unpaid peer review is rather unfair on the following grounds:<\/span><\/p>\n