Perspectives on peer review: insights from industry experts

Celebrating Peer Review Week 2023 with Elsevier

The landscape of academic publishing, along with the role of peer review, is undergoing rapid change, driven by new policies, business models, technologies, and the need for greater transparency and reproducibility.

Amidst these changes, Elsevier strives to collaborate with the research community to explore the new trends and discuss their impact on the future of the industry. Together, we can create innovative approaches that ensure the continued progress of academic publishing and scientific development.

To illustrate these discussions and celebrate Peer Review Week 2023 opens in new tab/window, the theme of which is “Peer Review and the Future of Publishing”, we are excited to present a series of interviews with various industry experts who discuss pressing issues in peer review. Check them out and hear how peer review is changing, and how it should change further!

What makes this year’s peer review week theme timely and important? In this interview, we speak with Roohi Ghosh, Co-Chair of Peer Review Week 2023, to gain her insights into the evolution of academic publishing and how peer review can co-evolve in the future.

Non-article research presents unique challenges for peer review, as it often encompasses multiple subject areas and technologies. To delve more deeply into this topic, we interview Joshua M. Pearce, Editor-in-Chief of HardwareX opens in new tab/window. During the discussion, he also shares his insights on open science and open data, and the impact of generative AI on peer review.

How can we leverage technology to improve the peer review process? Bahar Mehmani, Peer Review Innovation Lead at Elsevier, takes us through technological advances in peer review, examines how these developments help editors find referees, and considers how they enable peer reviewers to conduct reviews more efficiently.

Generative AI has caused unprecedented upheaval in the world of publishing. Mohammed Hosseini, a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University considers the potential applications of AI in peer review, as well as its pitfalls and benefits. He also provides insight into the challenges faced by peer reviewers, drawing from his own extensive experience as a referee.

For more information about peer review and the role of a referee, please visit: www.elsevier.com/reviewers.