Stop the peer-review treadmill. I want to get off – Nature (Amber Dance | February 2023)
The sheer number and growth rate in the number of academic titles is overwhelmingly and exhausting. The rapid pace of new papers, driven in no small part by the academic dictate to “publish or perish” has mutated science into something cheap and ugly. In this context, it’s really no surprise that it is so hard to find peer reviewers. The growing reluctance of academics to conduct reviews can’t be helped by the fact there is rarely recognition or even acknowledgement for the time taken to conduct a quality reviews. This also isn’t helped by the massive profits made by the major titles with them paying the authors and reviewers who have made their success possible. This Nature piece looks at some of the experiences and terrible state of affairs.