Nature
We have built a publishing system dependent entirely on voluntary labour, especially for local and independent journals. Without significant change – without formal recognition, support and genuine incentives – the shortage of reviewers will deepen. Publication schedules will suffer. The diversity of publishing outlets will diminish. Trust in peer review will erode. The solution requires action from multiple stakeholders including universities, funders and research assessment bodies.
Finding qualified peer reviewers has become one of the most significant challenges journal editors face. When peer review cannot be secured adequately, both the long-term viability of journals and research integrity suffer. The voluntary system underpinning academic trust is breaking down. The consequences are significant. Some journals now reject manuscripts outright when they cannot find suitable reviewers, despite the work being in scope and potentially valuable. Publishing articles takes longer and quality research can go unpublished because it cannot be properly peer reviewed.
Background
Peer review is any systematic procedure for collecting the views of a number of individual experts and translating them into a collective judgement. It is used in science to judge the intellectual excellence or importance of a piece of work. Scientists regularly practise peer review to appraise projects, allocated resources, monitor performance, evaluate institutions, referee manuscripts, recognize individuals, and reward achievement. Because the scientific criteria (originality, timeliness etc.) are often extended to include considerations of technological applicability, institutional strategy, disciplinary development and other policy objectives, "merit view", as this is called, inevitably plays a larger role in the expert advice employed at higher organizational levels.