The peer review process, by nature, is designed to be free of conflict of interest—that is, the reviewers should be unbiased when it comes to the authors whose work they are evaluating.
True objectivity, however, can be difficult to obtain, particularly if the review process is single blind (meaning, the reviewer knows the identity of the author). And if a reviewer’s opinion is swayed, it can not only compromise the integrity of the peer review process, but also cause well-deserving work to never make it to the publishing floor—or, perhaps even worse, create a pathway for flawed work to find its way into the scholarly publishing body.
So, it’s important to stop ethical peer review breaches before they start. But this isn’t a one-person job; it requires a team effort between three parties: the editorial board of the journal to which the work is submitted, the editors evaluating that work, and the reviewers themselves.
The Editorial Board’s Role
It’s up to each journal’s editorial advisory board to decide what kinds of policies and safeguards are implemented against room for peer-review bias, along with how strictly those guidelines should be enforced. One option, of course, is to create a double-blind reviewing process, meaning the author’s and the reviewer’s identities are, at least in theory, unknown to each other.
This procedure, though, is controversial within the scholarly publishing realm. For one thing, there are serious questions as to whether it even works. In certain sectors of science, for instance, reviewers can pretty easily figure out the identity of the author, just because the community of professionals focused on a particular scientific field can be relatively small.
Plus, even if the author name is removed from all parts of the manuscript, an astute reviewer might be able to figure out the identity based on details such as places and/or grant numbers in funding statements, ethical statements, acknowledgments, and other similar disclosures.
So, the question then becomes: Is it better to outright state the identity, as opposed to creating the opportunity for a reviewer to go digging for his or her name? In many cases, the former actually breeds less room for bias than the latter.
The Right Editors Choosing The Right Reviewers
If someone has ascended to the level of editor—or certainly editor-in-chief—of a scholarly journal, it’s a foregone conclusion that he or she has a certain level of prestige within the scholarly publishing community. This means it’s understood that the editor will go through all of the necessary channels when choosing reviewers for a particular manuscript, using the knowledge about the scholarly community that they have gleaned over the years.
Oftentimes (though admittedly not always), editors of scholarly journals are esteemed figures in academia, which means they are acutely aware of financial dealings that have taken place within their sector of the scientific business. And if those monetary investments could create conflicts of interest during peer review, they should stop the potential problem before it starts by refraining from selecting certain reviewers to take on certain manuscripts.
As an example: Let’s say a certain potential reviewer is a high-powered figure in an external organization that awarded an author’s group grant money to conduct experiments. And let’s say that same author group submits an article for consideration to a scholarly journal specializing in subject matter that aligns with the same reviewer’s area of expertise.
In a situation like that, if the editor is aware of the grant, it might be irresponsible for them to seek out that reviewer for that manuscript—at least, not without doing a deep dive into whether influences could occur.
At first glance, it might seem like there’s a simple solution: Just choose another reviewer. But it’s not always that easy, particularly when you’re talking about specialized fields, because top experts are sometimes few and far between. Nevertheless, it’s a possible pitfall that every scholarly editor needs to stay on top of, every time out, for every manuscript assignment.
The Reviewers Themselves Are Still Responsible
The editors and editorial advisory boards might be able to put procedures in place to keep conflicts of interest to a minimum during peer review—ultimately, though, the onus is on the actual reviewers to stay away from a situation that could cause a problem. When editors are choosing reviewers, they are doing so with the understanding that they will handle the task as professionally as possible, and it’s up to the reviewer to hold to their end of that agreement.
For instance, suppose an editor asks a reviewer to evaluate an article for a single-blind scientific journal that was authored by one of that reviewer’s former postdoc students—but only the reviewer is aware of this and not the editor. The responsibility lies with the reviewer to recuse himself or herself from that particular assignment by declining the invitation to review; it’s not up to the editor to find out that kind of information.
Or, even in a situation like the aforementioned financial grant example, it’s not always possible to fault the editor for merely being unaware of every financial transaction that takes place. Reviewers, like editors, are generally chosen based on their solid reputation—and they have a duty to uphold that reputation by approaching invitations to review with honesty if something just seems off.
Final Thoughts
Despite the best efforts of all parties, the process of eliminating bias and conflict of interest in the peer-review process is inherently imperfect. Inevitably, there will always be cases where some degree of bias creeps in, even with the most meticulous checks and balances in place.
But here’s the tough reality: If all room for possible conflict of interest were to be removed, high-quality peer review simply would not exist. That’s because the top minds in science and scholarly publishing would be totally prohibited from evaluating the work of literally any authors in their fields.
This means that while the aforementioned steps should be followed to the best of everyone’s ability, no one in scholarly publishing—not authors, not editors, and not reviewers—should spend every waking moment attempting to get around the natural inclination toward bias that comes with human input. Human evaluation—as opposed to peer review based solely on AI (which is a whole different topic for another day)—is what always has made, and always will make, the scholarly publishing field so prestigious and reputable!
When conflicts of interest do happen, they are almost always unintentional. Still, there will always be those few cases where something goes wrong, and it’s because someone in the pipeline knew there was a conflict of interest that they didn’t bother to call out.
And in cases like those, authors can’t be afraid to speak up! Writing a letter about their concerns, and sending it to the journal advisory board, is a good first step. Because chances are, if it happened once with a certain reviewer, it probably has happened before—but some other author just wasn’t courageous enough to call it out.
Yet it’s this kind of transparency, even among student authors who are just starting out, that helps to preserve the integrity of the scholarly publishing realm. Remember: The focus shouldn’t be ethical violations. Rather, it should be allowing top-notch researchers—whether beginners, intermediates, or seasoned experts—to share their great ideas with the world!
By Anne Brenner
Anne is an Assistant Managing Editor at Technica Editorial
