Social influence and peer review

Abstract

Why traditional peer review is no longer adapted, and how it should evolveDaniel Fisher (daniel.fisher@igmm.cnrs.fr)1 and Nikolaos Parisis11Montpellier Institute of Molecular Genetics (IGMM) CNRS University of Montpellier, Montpellier, FranceThere is a nearly unanimous perception among molecular and cell biologists that publishing has become the most discouraging and frustrating part of research. The trepidation level peaks at each stage of the process: the editorial stage where rejection without review has become the norm; the review stage where reviewers frequently do not fully understand the work or its implications; and the revision stage, when authors shoulder the disproportionate effort to revise the paper per reviewers' demands. The problems with peer review are not limited to publishing though, and also affect funding or hiring decisions in academia each time a group of experts tries to predict the impact of a grant proposal or job applicant.The problems with peer review are not limited to publishing though, and also affect funding or hiring decisions in academia…A widespread assumption is that the current publication system mainly benefits scientists at the top who publish frequently in high‐impact factor journals; yet many of these scientists are also dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. Ron Vale, winner of the 2012 Albert Lasker Prize in basic medical research, analysed the evolution of the amount of data needed and the time it takes to get a paper published in biomedical journals. He found that both have increased significantly during the past decades, to a point that it is harming the career prospects of young researchers and holding back scientific discovery [1]. Richard Smith, former Editor‐in‐Chief of the British Medical Journal, blames the peer review system, describing it as “slow, expensive, profligate of academic time, highly subjective, something of a lottery, prone to bias, and easily abused” [2]. He proposed to abolish pre‐publication peer review altogether, arguing that it is no longer necessary because the power of the Internet now allows instant publication …