Peer Review Week 2025: Rethinking Peer Review in the AI Era

 Did you know that 15–19 September 2025 is international Peer Review Week? This is a time of year to celebrate and think about the important role that peer review plays in upholding the quality and integrity of scholarly publication.

 The theme of this year’s Peer Review Week is “Rethinking Peer Review in the AI Era.” The theme invites the research community to consider the ways that ethical and transparent use of artificial intelligence tools might enhance, rather than undermine, reviewer integrity and transparency. It also raises important questions about aspects of peer review that should remain uniquely human in an age of rapid technological change.

 Despite the history of scientific journals extending back to the publication of the first issue of Philosophical Transactions in March 1665, modern, double-blind peer review is a relatively recent development in scholarly publishing. It wasn’t until 1973 that the flagship scientific journal, Nature, finally made anonymous refereeing standard practice as we know it today.

 Three-hundred-and-sixty years after the publication of that first scientific journal, the process for determining the veracity of research articles continues to undergo constant change. The scholarly publishing industry faces new pressures as the number of new papers being submitted for consideration is rapidly outpacing the pool of reviewers available to assess them.

 Statistics published by Nature in 2018 revealed some of the challenges facing the peer review system. The article indicated that 10% of reviewers were responsible for reviewing 50% of articles, and that the majority of editors identified finding willing reviewers as the hardest part of their job. More recently, Nature reported that the problem is getting even worse.

 A variety of solutions have been proposed to make peer review more sustainable into the future. Suggestions have ranged from paying academics to review articles, to using generative AI to speed up the review process, to scrapping peer review entirely. For the time being peer review continues to serve as an important line of defence against bad science, but time will tell if it continues to be sustainable into the future.

 For more information about international Peer Review Week, head to https://peerreviewweek.net/.

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