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Overburdening of peer reviewers. A multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder perspective on causes, effects and potential policy implications

View ORCID ProfileAnna Severin, View ORCID ProfileJoanna Chataway
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.14.426539
Anna Severin
1Institute for Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
2Swiss National Science Foundation, Bern, Switzerland
3Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy, University College London, London, United Kingdom
4Graduate School for Public Health Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
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Joanna Chataway
3Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy, University College London, London, United Kingdom
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Abstract

Peer review of manuscripts is labour-intensive and time-consuming. Individual reviewers often feel themselves overburdened with the amount of reviewing they are requested to do. Aiming to explore how stakeholder groups perceive reviewing burden and what they believe to be the causes of a potential overburdening of reviewers, we conducted focus groups with early-, mid-, and senior career scholars, editors, and publishers. By means of a thematic analysis, we aimed to identify the causes of overburdening of reviewers. First, we show that, across disciplines and roles, stakeholders believed that the reviewing workload has become so enormous that the academic community is no longer able to supply the reviewing resources necessary to address its demand for peer review. Second, the reviewing workload is distributed unequally across the academic community, thereby overwhelming small groups of scholars. Third, stakeholders believed the overburdening of reviewers to be caused by (i) an increase in manuscript submissions; (ii) insufficient editorial triage; (iii) a lack of reviewing instructions; (iv) difficulties in recruiting reviewers; (v) inefficiencies in manuscript handling and (vi) a lack of institutionalisation of peer review. These themes were assumed to mutually reinforce each other and to relate to an inadequate incentive structure in academia that favours publications over peer review. In order to alleviate reviewing burden, a holistic approach is required that addresses both the increased demand for and the insufficient supply of reviewing resources.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
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Posted January 16, 2021.
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Overburdening of peer reviewers. A multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder perspective on causes, effects and potential policy implications
Anna Severin, Joanna Chataway
bioRxiv 2021.01.14.426539; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.14.426539
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Overburdening of peer reviewers. A multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder perspective on causes, effects and potential policy implications
Anna Severin, Joanna Chataway
bioRxiv 2021.01.14.426539; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.14.426539

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