Peer Review Reform Taskforce

Peer Review Reform Taskforce
Name	Peer Review Reform Taskforce
Type	Advisory body
Founded	2023
Headquarters	International
Leader title	Chair
Leader name	Independent academics
Area served	Scholarly publishing

Peer Review Reform Taskforce was a multi-stakeholder initiative established in 2023 to evaluate and redesign scholarly peer review processes across disciplines. Founded amid debates involving Open Science, COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), and national funders such as the Wellcome Trust and the National Institutes of Health, the Taskforce sought to reconcile competing priorities from publishers like Elsevier, Springer Nature, and Wiley-Blackwell with advocacy groups including Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, ScienceOpen, and research communities at institutions such as Harvard University and the University of Oxford. Its work intersected with initiatives by regulatory bodies like the European Commission and professional societies including the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Background

The Taskforce emerged after high-profile incidents in venues like The Lancet, Nature, and Science raised concerns about reproducibility highlighted by studies from teams at Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prompting convenings at venues such as the Royal Society and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, stakeholders referenced prior reform efforts exemplified by the DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment), the Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines, and the AllTrials campaign. Debates reflected tensions between legacy publishers including Taylor & Francis and newer platforms like bioRxiv, medRxiv, and arXiv.

Objectives and Scope

The Taskforce defined objectives to improve fairness, transparency, and efficiency in editorial processes, aligning with principles from FAIR data advocacy, the Budapest Open Access Initiative, and mandates from agencies such as the European Research Council and the National Science Foundation. Scope included assessment of peer reviewer recognition models used by platforms like Publons and experiments with registered reports championed by journals such as PLOS ONE and eLife. It aimed to address incentives discussed in reports from The Royal Society and policy papers issued by the Wellcome Trust and the Horizon Europe program.

Organization and Membership

Composition combined representatives from major publishers (Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley-Blackwell), funding agencies (Wellcome Trust, National Institutes of Health, European Research Council), university research offices (e.g., University of Cambridge, Imperial College London), and civil-society actors including COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, and advocacy groups tied to repositories like Zenodo. Individual experts included senior editors from Nature, The Lancet, and Cell Press as well as methodologists from Stanford University, University of Oxford, and Harvard Medical School. Working groups mirrored committees at the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and advisory panels convened by the Wellcome Trust.

Recommendations and Policy Proposals

Recommendations synthesized evidence from meta-research by centers such as the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford and the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine and proposed policies resonant with the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment. Major proposals included adoption of open peer review workflows used by F1000Research and eLife, implementation of reviewer credit systems akin to Publons, broader use of preprint servers including bioRxiv and medRxiv, adoption of registered reports promoted by PLOS ONE and Nature Human Behaviour, and standardized reviewer training modeled on programs at COPE and the National Institutes of Health. It called for interoperable metadata standards in line with initiatives from Crossref, ORCID, and DataCite.

Implementation and Pilot Programs

Pilot programs launched in collaboration with journals such as PLOS ONE, eLife, and specialty titles under BMJ Publishing Group, alongside experiments at institutions like Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Toronto. Pilots tested open review platforms inspired by Publons integrations, double-anonymous review trials used by conferences in Association for Computing Machinery and journals in IEEE, and reviewer incentives including microgrants from funders like the Wellcome Trust and the Gates Foundation. Data-sharing components leveraged repositories including Zenodo and Figshare, with evaluation metrics cross-checked against bibliometric indicators from Scopus and Web of Science.

Reception and Impact

Reactions spanned endorsement by advocates at DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) signatory institutions and uptake by journals under eLife and PLOS banners, while regulatory interest grew among European Commission and national research councils such as the Research Councils UK. Early impact indicators included expanded preprint posting at bioRxiv, increased adoption of registered reports at titles influenced by Nature Human Behaviour, and publisher commitments from Springer Nature and Wiley-Blackwell to pilot transparency measures. The Taskforce influenced policy dialogues at meetings hosted by The Royal Society, G7 Research Ministers' Forum, and the World Health Organization.

Criticisms and Controversies

Critics from editorial boards at legacy journals such as The Lancet and stakeholders aligned with Elsevier argued proposals risked unintended consequences for niche fields represented by societies like the American Chemical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Concerns echoed debates involving Plan S over mandates for open access and dispute over commercialization raised by commentators linked to Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition and analysts at Harvard University. Additional controversies involved potential biases in pilot data from conferences like those run by the Association for Computing Machinery and disputes over reviewer confidentiality paralleling historical controversies at Nature and Science.

Category:Scholarly publishing