What influences the regional diversity of reviewers: A study of medical and agricultural/biological sciences journals

Abstract

There is evidence of a geographical imbalance of reviewers, leading to concerns about the sustainability of peer review to ensure high‐quality, timely publications. This research evaluated articles submitted during 2016 to 149 Wiley‐owned journals in two disciplines: medicine (112 journals), and agricultural and biological sciences (37). We compared the reviewer location with the location of the author and the Editor‐in‐Chief, the size and rank of the journal, and whether the journal had difficulty in obtaining reviews. We found that reviewers mostly came from the USA, but there was a correlation between the reviewer location and the country and region of the Editor‐in‐Chief and that of the corresponding author. Reviewers were also more likely to accept invitations to review articles when the corresponding author was from their region and were more likely to be positive about such articles. We found no difference between journals of different disciplines and of different rank or size or difficulty in obtaining reviews.

Should authors suggest reviewers? A comparative study of the performance of author‐suggested and editor‐selected reviewers at a biological journal

“…Most recently, a study on regional diversity of reviewers concluded that reviewers were more likely to accept invitations and also more likely to be positive about the manuscripts when the corresponding author was from their region (Gaston & Smart, ). This study came to the same conclusion.…”

“…Besides the reviewer source, reviewer performance can be influenced by other characteristics such as gender (Fox et al, ), handling editor (Y. Liang, unpublished data), and geographic location (Gaston & Smart, ). To better answer the question of should authors suggest reviewers, this study surveyed the country of authors and reviewers, and tested the location effects on the invitation response and recommendation of reviews between author‐suggested and editor‐selected reviewers.…”

Question all assumptions: Learned Publishing at 30

“…In common with many western publishers, we have seen an increase in the number of original research articles from outside the US/UK/western regions, and these have provided us with some unexpected perspectives – for example, why authors from some regions do not choose western journals for their work (Kurt, ). Regional diversity can be a challenge for editors and publishers alike when it comes to balancing perspectives, quality, and workload throughout the editorial processes (Gaston & Smart, ). Many journals have been experiencing a tremendous growth of articles from China (indeed, according to the recent National Science Foundation (NSF) statistics, China‐based authors are now publishing more than US‐based authors: NSF, ).…”

Dispatches from the editor: how should we reward those that peer review for our military journal?

“…There are real concerns about fraudulent reviews enabling substandard or even factually incorrect papers to be published. There is evidence of a geographical imbalance of reviewers, leading to concerns about the sustainability of peer review to ensure high-quality, timely publications 3. Worldwide the vast majority of peer reviews come from the USA, UK, Germany and Canada with next to no reviews from Asia and the Middle East 4.…”

“…Worldwide the vast majority of peer reviews come from the USA, UK, Germany and Canada with next to no reviews from Asia and the Middle East 4. This in general reflects the nationalities of the editors in chief, who in general choose peer reviewers in their own country of origin, often to ensure that peer reviews are genuine and non-biased 3. The New England Journal of Medicine has recently addressed this issue further and now only uses reviewers with an institutional email address.…”