Establishing a peer review accreditation scheme would also help incentivise higher standards, says Arfan Ghani

The “publish or perish” culture that universities across the world have adopted in recent decades makes entire academic careers dependent on peer review processes. Yet while academics are subjected to exacting assessment based on the supposed quality of the journals in which they publish, very little research has been done on the accuracy and consistency of those journals’ editorial practices.

As it stands, the whole process of peer review looks badly flawed. Those who do well out of it will, of course, defend it, but for many others it is a broken system. One issue is the length of time it takes. But more important is the apparent prevalence of unfair and inconsistent outcomes. Any scientist can point to inferior papers that somehow got through a top-tier journal’s review process – and much stronger papers that were mysteriously rejected.

Sometimes the inconsistency between the verdicts of the expert reviewers is so great that the whole process appears ludicrous: one reviewer is happy to accept the manuscript unchanged, while another is unwilling even to offer an opportunity to revise it. Sometimes such malice is motivated by a desire to slow down the publication of a rival’s results – perhaps so that the reviewer can beat them to it.

Sometimes reviewers don’t even take responsibility for their own reviews, passing manuscripts on to their PhD students to review. While, arguably, it is not wrong to ask postgrads to give their feedback, leaving the final judgment to them, without any oversight, is not acceptable.

The question is how to make peer review more consistent, quantifiable and transparent. The scale and gravity of the problem means there is no quick fix, but that does not mean we should not try to improve the system.

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