Who should still peer-review, for whom, and with what tools?

In drafting On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin developed his thoughts through extensive correspondence with trusted colleagues, seeking feedback on ideas, manuscripts, and proofs. This informal peer-review process, like many others of its time, was based on personal trust, academic respect, and reputation rather than guided by any institution, and it helped pave the way for modern peer review. Today, peer review has been largely corrupted by corporate greed: a handful of dominant mega-publishers exploit reviewers (and to an extent also editors) as an unpaid, external workforce expected to supply scientific judgement, quality control, and career signalling that journals package and sell but do not themselves produce. Amid an ever-increasing volume of review requests reaching researchers' inboxes daily, many respond by declining invitations outright, if they respond at all. Others accept but rely heavily on AI, since this saves time and a few more reviews will look good on their Web of Science profile. Thorough intellectual assessments are becoming increasingly rare. The current system is not sustainable, and change is urgently needed before expert judgement is fully displaced by speed, prestige signalling, and machine-written reports. Solutions include distributing unpaid peer-review labour more wisely, prioritizing non-commercial publishers and academia-friendly journals, exploring alternative business models, and redesigning peer review so that human expertise is concentrated on tasks requiring scientific judgement while low-order tasks are supported by AI. Above all, researchers, editors, funders, publishers, and societies should stop treating review as free certification labour and instead recognize it as a scarce scholarly resource that must be used where it contributes most to scientific quality.

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Publication Details

Published
2026-11-02
DOI
https://doi.org/10.32942/x2s697
Primary Topic
Publishing and Scholarly Communication
Type
preprint
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preprint

Who should still peer-review, for whom, and with what tools?

Lucian Pârvulescu, Emili García‐Berthou, Lorenzo Vilizzi, Elizabeta Briski et al.
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Publishing and Scholarly Communication
preprint

Who should still peer-review, for whom, and with what tools?

Lucian Pârvulescu, Emili García‐Berthou, Lorenzo Vilizzi, Elizabeta Briski, Jingrui Sun, Virginie Raybaud, Danish Ali Ahmed, Manuel Lopes‐Lima, Riccardo Scalerà, Teun Everts, Marta Rodríguez‐Rey, Anna Gavioli, Stefano Mammola, Carlos Cano‐Barbacil, Phillip Joschka Haubrock, Barbora Števove, Valentini Stamatiadou, Mattias Johansson, Baran Yoğurtçuoğlu, Diego Fontaneto, Ester (2) Eckert, Stelios Katsanevakis, Ross Cuthbert, Michel Bariche, Ali Tarkan, Eva Záhorská, Paride Balzani, Ronaldo Sousa, Joana Nogueira, Alessandro Nota
preprint en

Abstract

In drafting On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin developed his thoughts through extensive correspondence with trusted colleagues, seeking feedback on ideas, manuscripts, and proofs. This informal peer-review process, like many others of its time, was based on personal trust, academic respect, and reputation rather than guided by any institution, and it helped pave the way for modern peer review. Today, peer review has been largely corrupted by corporate greed: a handful of dominant mega-publishers exploit reviewers (and to an extent also editors) as an unpaid, external workforce expected to supply scientific judgement, quality control, and career signalling that journals package and sell but do not themselves produce. Amid an ever-increasing volume of review requests reaching researchers' inboxes daily, many respond by declining invitations outright, if they respond at all. Others accept but rely heavily on AI, since this saves time and a few more reviews will look good on their Web of Science profile. Thorough intellectual assessments are becoming increasingly rare. The current system is not sustainable, and change is urgently needed before expert judgement is fully displaced by speed, prestige signalling, and machine-written reports. Solutions include distributing unpaid peer-review labour more wisely, prioritizing non-commercial publishers and academia-friendly journals, exploring alternative business models, and redesigning peer review so that human expertise is concentrated on tasks requiring scientific judgement while low-order tasks are supported by AI. Above all, researchers, editors, funders, publishers, and societies should stop treating review as free certification labour and instead recognize it as a scarce scholarly resource that must be used where it contributes most to scientific quality.

Roma Tre University (IT), Queen's University Belfast (GB), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), Gulf University for Science & Technology (KW), Universidad de Alcalá (ES), University of Ferrara (IT), Research Institute for Nature and Forest (BE), Universitat de Girona (ES), West University of Timişoara (RO), University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice (CZ), University of Łódź (PL), GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (DE), Institute of Ecosystem Study (IT), Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (ES), Institute for Biomedical Research and Innovation (IT), Finnish Museum of Natural History (FI), South Bohemia research center of aquaculture and biodiversity of hydrocenoses (CZ), University of Turin (IT), Hacettepe University (TR), Comenius University Bratislava (SK), Muğla University (TR), College of The Bahamas (BS), Bournemouth University (GB), American University of Beirut (LB), University of the Aegean (GR), KU Leuven (BE)
Publishing and Scholarly Communication
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