Peer review through time: From 17th century to the digital age

By Pallavi Mukherjee, Editorial Coordinator, Paediatrics & Child Health

Refereeing (later called ‘peer review’) began as a simple tool to help journal editors select papers. Over time, it evolved into gaining subject matter expertise, gradually developing into the rigorous quality-control system in scholarly publishing today. With over 5.14 million academic papers published annually in 2022¹, we’re taking a trip down peer review’s memory lane for insights into how peer review came to be a central process in academic publishing and the ongoing efforts that continue to shape peer review to fit the needs of our current research and scholarly publishing landscape.

Historical context of peer review: 1600 – 1800s

A 1971 paper claimed that peer review started nearly 360 years ago, with the launch of the first known journal.² It was said that Henry Oldenburg, editor of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, started the process of consulting experts for their opinion on submitted papers. But this claim is highly debated. More recent research shows that the systematic peer review used by most academic journals today was formed only in the late 20th century.^3,4

Through the 17th and 18th centuries, editors of journals published by societies such as Académie des Sciences and The Royal Society of Edinburgh sent manuscripts to subject matter experts to determine whether they should be selected for publication.^5–7The Royal Society of London adopted this method in 1752 and modified it by forming a “Committee on Papers” that invited external experts to review articles.^2,3,7 The purpose was to help editors select papers for publication although decisions to accept or reject were largely influenced by personal preferences.^2,8 For centuries, learned societies publishing journals were non-profit, focused on disseminating new findings and ideas.^5,9 They published their journals in-house and did not have resources to guarantee the accuracy or truthfulness of the material.^5,7,10 Some historians refer to this time as the “pre-history” of peer review.^3–5,11

Evolution of peer review: 1800 – 1970s

In 1831, the English polymath William Whewell proposed that papers submitted to Philosophical Transactions be reviewed by two fellows of The Royal Society, who would each provide a written evaluation.^11–14 He suggested that these reports be published in the Society’s new journal, Proceeding of the Royal Society of London, to encourage more submissions and promote wider knowledge dissemination.^12,14,15 Although his plan wasn’t an immediate success due to conflict in the fellows’ reports (a challenge encountered even today), he is credited with establishing the first form of modern peer review.^12,14,15 

During the 1840s and 1850s, referees mainly served an advisory role, helping editors choose papers and often preventing the journal from printing anything that could affect the reputation of the learned societies.^5,15 But as the number of academic journals grew, so did concerns about the quality of published research.⁵

In the late 19th century, Ernest Hart, editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), incorporated a peer review process, with the aim of ensuring high-quality papers with minimal errors. Although this development marked an important step toward the modern peer review process, it grew slowly and haphazardly¹⁶ and was primarily adopted in the UK and North America, albeit by a small circle of prominent scientists.^5,6,8,11,17 Outside the UK and North America, the peer review process was so uncommon that when Einstein received a reviewer’s report from Physical Reviews in 1936, he withdrew the manuscript and never again submitted to the journal.^5,18

One reason peer review became more common was the increasing complexity and specialization in research field requiring expert knowledge.¹⁹ Another was that after World War II, research funding grew significantly in the U.S., leading to a rapid expansion of scientific and medical research.^19–21 University research was mostly funded by donors, internal funds, and private foundations,²² and the review process for applications was informal. Even as the National Institutes of Health expanded, its grant application reviews lacked transparency, provided no feedback to authors, and relied heavily on the scientist’s reputation.^6,23 The National Science Foundation (NSF) was created in 1975 to ensure fairer peer review for grant applications. Around the same time, the term ‘peer review’ replaced 'refereeing' in academic journals.^5,6  Thirdly, as funding increased, the resulting surge in papers received by journals became too large for editors to manage on their own.⁵ For example, Alexander Gutman, editor of The American Journal of Medicine (founded in 1946), initially managed the publication process himself, providing authors with a quick turnaround. However, by 1960s, the growing volume of submissions prompted him to send papers for external refereeing.⁵

Peer review today – 1970s to present

As the practice of peer review became adopted and formalized by academic journals, American scientists began to view journals that lacked a peer review as sketchy and unreliable.⁵ Although peer review remained optional outside of the U.S., the influence of American funding agencies, researchers, and universities led to its global spread across disciplines.⁵ In 1970s, major journals such as Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet embraced peer review, marking a broader shift in scientific publishing, and making peer review central to academic publishing.^13,24

The standardization of peer review began after the 1970s, gradually developing into the process we know today: the editor-in-chief checks for manuscript suitability, and if it fits the scope of the journal, it is sent for peer review. Reviewers submit feedback, including a recommended final decision. This process enables editors to make informed decisions about manuscripts while also encouraging quality control. As technology has advanced, peer review has moved from a paper-based process to almost entirely digital.⁸

In the late 20th century, other significant changes in academic publishing that affected the peer review process include:

1. The commercialization of society publication: the increase in research output and specialization resulted in a surge of publication leading to many societies to rely on major publishers to manage cost and scale of journal production and processes.^25,26
2. Blinding system: growing concerns regarding demographic and reputational biases in the peer review process led journals to adopt single-blind and double-blind review systems to promote fairer reviews, though their effectiveness in the present, digital time has declined.
3. Preprint: was introduced when studies began reporting peer review as time-consuming, biased and an inconsistent process^27–31 ,allowing for the online sharing of minimally screened papers. Preprints later became central to the “open science” conversation.³²
4. Post-publication: was launched in 2002 by F1000 in which papers undergo a basic in-house sanity check and if approved are published immediately. It is only post-publication that the papers are evaluated through an open peer review process.³³
5. Open peer review: radically opposite to the blind peer-review system, it gained momentum in the 1990s with BMJ pioneering this approach. This model revealed the identities of both the reviewer and author, offering several advantages. These include constructive feedback for authors, formal recognition of reviewers, providing more transparency and less biases, and offering a sort of reviewer guideline for early career and new reviewers.³⁴

Following BMJ’s lead, many journals adopted similar open access (OA) practices resulting in varied interpretations of the “open peer review” process. Currently, it is an umbrella term encompassing several models, with the aim to "open science".³⁵ The early 2000s saw a rapid expansion in OA with BioMed Central (BMC) being the first commercial OA publishers followed by the release of the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2002, and Bethesda statement and Berlin declaration formally establishing the principles of OA in 2003. PLOS further advanced OA in 2003 by launching PLOS Biology, emphasizing evaluation of manuscripts based more on research quality over perceived importance (based on topic of interest). Since its inception, it is estimated that 28% of scholarly literature (19 million papers) is openly accessible, a number that continues to grow with the rise of Gold and Hybrid models.³⁶

While discussions around different peer review models center on transparency and reviewer anonymity, it also raises the issue of how a reviewer’s work is acknowledged. In 2012, Publons was founded (acquired by Clarivate in 2022) as a platform to formally recognize reviewer contribution. In 2015, ORCID initiated a peer review integration that allows universities, organizations, publishers etc. to add peer review activity to a researcher’s ORCID profile. In 2016, Publon started ‘Publons Peer Review Award’ that honored top reviewers and editors across global journals. By 2014, mostly all global publishers recognize reviewer contribution via reviewer certificates and awards, and reviewer thanking campaigns.

Challenges for the future

Despite growing and changing for more than three centuries, peer review continues to face challenges including:

• Reviewer fatigue: increasing volume of submissions is disproportionate to the number of available reviewers (especially in STEM)³⁷, leading to overwork and low-quality reviewer feedback.³⁸
• Lack of reviewer acknowledgement: surveys suggest that peer review is under-recognized and should be given more importance by institutions’ evaluation process.³⁹
• Speed of peer review: even with digital processes, peer review is slow, time-consuming (especially to find reviewers), and expensive, leading to delays in publication.³⁹
• Challenges in detecting misconduct: there is a growing concern that peer review isn’t equipped to detect research misconduct.⁴⁰

In our next blog post, we will explore the current challenges in peer review and how advancements in artificial intelligence might affect its future.

References

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