Scientists in developed countries provide nearly three times as many
peer reviews per paper submitted as researchers in emerging nations, according to the largest ever survey of the practice.
The report — which surveyed more than 11,000 researchers worldwide — also finds a growing “reviewer fatigue”, with editors having to invite more reviewers to get each review done. The number rose from 1.9 invitations in 2013 to 2.4 in 2017.
The
Global State of Peer Review report was undertaken by Publons, a website that helps academics to track their reviews and other contributions to scientific journals. The authors used data from the survey, conducted from May to July 2018, as well as data from Publons, Web of Science Core Collection and Scholar One Manuscripts databases.
