Global State of Peer Review<\/a>\u00a0report 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.<\/p>\nThe report notes that finding peer reviewers is becoming harder, even as the overall volume of publications rises globally (see \u2018Is reviewer fatigue setting in?\u2019).<\/p>\n
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\nSource: Global State of Peer Review 2018<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n <\/p>\n
And although contributions to peer review from emerging economies are lower compared with developed countries, they are rising rapidly, says Andrew Preston, managing director of Publons, in London. \u201cPeer reviews lag publication, so it will take a few years for emerging regions to catch up,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Data digging<\/h6>\n
Researchers in leading science locations, such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan, write nearly 2 peer reviews per submitted article of their own, compared with about 0.6 peer reviews per submission by those in emerging countries such as China, Brazil, India and Poland, the study found (see \u2018Uneven contributions\u2019).<\/p>\n
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\nSource: Global State of Peer Review 2018<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n <\/p>\n
Scientists in emerging economies are more likely to accept requests for peer review and complete their reviews faster than those from established economies. But their reviews also tend to be shorter than those from colleagues in wealthy countries.<\/p>\n
The report says scientists from emerging economies might review less because editors\u2019 networks and scientific are still largely centred in developed nations.<\/p>\n
In 2013\u201317, the United States contributed nearly 33% of peer reviews, and published 25.4% of articles worldwide. By contrast, emerging nations did 19% of peer reviews, and published 29% of all articles.<\/p>\n
China stood out \u2014 the country accounted for 13.8% of scientific articles during the period, but did only 8.8% of reviews. Even so, China overtook the United Kingdom in numbers of peer reviews conducted by its scientists in 2015, the study says.<\/p>\n
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