Impact of institutional affiliation bias in the peer review process

Ridha Horchani

doi:10.1629/uksg.681

Abstract

Peer review is a cornerstone of scientific advancement, intended to provide an unbiased evaluation of research originality, rigour and merit. While this process is intended to be impartial, increasing scrutiny has focused on the adequacy and fairness of the peer review process across various scientific fields. Questions regarding the reliability, accountability, potential reviewer bias and competence of peer reviewers have been raised. Despite these concerns, there has been very little empirical research directly addressing these issues.

References

1Y. Brackbill and F. Korton, “Journal reviewing practices: Authors’ and APA members’ suggestions for revision,” American Psychologist 25, no.10 (1970): 937–40, DOI: 10.1037/h0029927 (accessed 30 January 2025); D. Crane, “The gatekeepers of science: Some factors affecting the selection of articles for scientific journals,” American Sociologist 32, no.4 (1967): 195–201, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27701277 (accessed 30 January 2025); Walter R. Gove, “The review process and its consequences in the major sociology journals,” Contemporary Sociology 8, no.6 (1979): 799–804, DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2064432 (accessed 30 January 2025); E. Tobach, (1980) “… that ye be judged,” In An evaluation of the peer review system in psychological research, chairman J. Demarest, open forum presented at the American Psychological Convention, Montreal, 1980, https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Tobach,+E.+(1980)+%E2%80%9C%E2%80%A6+that+ye+be+judged.%E2%80%9D+In+An+evaluation+of+the+peer+review+system+in+psychological+research,+chairman+J.+Demarest,+open+forum+presented+at+the+American+Psychological+Convention,+Montreal.+[taDPP (accessed 30 January 2025); G. William Walster and T. Anne Cleary, “A proposal for a new editorial policy in the social sciences,” American Statistician 24, no. 2 (1970): 16–19, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00031305.1970.10478884 (accessed 30 January 2025).
Back to article
2Steven Harnad, “Creative disagreement,” Sciences 19, (1979): 18–20, http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/Kata/creative.disagreement.htm (accessed 30 January 2025); R. A. Gordon, “The advantages of a simple system of optional published refereeing,” Speculations in Science and Technology 3, (1980): 607–9, https://link.springer.com/journal/11216/volumes-and-issues; M. Ruderfer, “The fallacy of peer review – Judgment without science and a case history,” Speculations in Science and Technology 3, (1980): 533–62, https://link.springer.com/journal/11216/volumes-and-issues; Harriet Zuckerman and Robert K. Merton, “Patterns of evaluation in science: Institutionalization, structure and functions of the referee system,” Minerva 9, no. 1 (1971): 66–100, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41827004 (accessed 30 January 2025).
Back to article
3Bernard Barber, “Resistance by scientists to scientific discovery,” Science 134, no. 3479 (1961): 596–602, DOI: 10.1126/science.134.3479.596 (accessed 30 January 2025).
Back to article
4Juan Miguel Campanario, “Rejecting and resisting Nobel class discoveries: accounts by Nobel Laureates,” Scientometrics 81, (2009): 549–65, DOI: 10.1007/s11192-008-2141-5 (accessed 30 January 2025).
Back to article
5“Coping with peer rejection,” Nature 425, (2003): 645, DOI: 10.1038/425645a (accessed 30 January 2025).
Back to article
6J. Matías-Guiu and R García-Ramos, “Editorial bias in scientific publications,” Neurologia 26, no.1 (2011): 1–5, DOI: 10.1016/j.nrl.2010.11.001 (accessed 30 January 2025).
Back to article
7Meredith T. Niles et al., “Why we publish where we do: faculty publishing values and their relationship to review, promotion,” PLoS ONE 15, no.3 (2020): e0228914, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0228914 (accessed 30 January 2025); Samuel F. Way et al., “Productivity, prominence, and the effects of academic environment,” PNAS 116, no. 22 (2019): 10729–10733, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1817431116 (accessed 30 January 2025).
Back to article
8Jonathan Brogaard, Joseph Engelberg, and Christopher A. Parsons, “Networks and productivity: causal evidence from editor rotations,” Journal of Financial Economics 111, no. 1, (2014): 251–270, DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2013.10.006 (accessed 30 January 2025); Marshall H. Medoff, “Editorial favoritism in economics?,” Southern Economic Association 70, no. 2 (2003): 425–434, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2325-8012.2003.tb00580.x (accessed 30 January 2025); David N. Laband and Michael J. Piette, “Favoritism versus search for good papers: empirical evidence regarding the behavior of journal editors,” Journal of Political Economy, 102, no.1 (1994): 194–203, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/261927 (accessed 30 January 2025).
Back to article
9Kao Si et al., “Affiliation bias in peer review and the gender gap,” Research Policy 52, no.7 (2023): 104797, DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2023.104797 (accessed 30 January 2025); I. Sverdlichenko, S. Xie, and E. Margolin, Ethics, Medicine and Public Health 21, (2022): 100758, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jemep.2022.100758 (accessed 30 January 2025).
Back to article
10Ronald S. Burt, “The gender of social capital,” Rationality and Society 10, (1998): 5–46, DOI: 10.1177/104346398010001001 (accessed 30 January 2025).
Back to article
11Campanario, “Rejecting and resisting Nobel class discoveries,”; D.H. Osmond “Malice’s wonderland: research funding and peer review,” Journal of Neurobiology 14, no. 2 (1983): 95–112, DOI: 10.1002/neu.480140202 (accessed 30 January 2025).
Back to article
12Michael J. Mahoney, “Publication prejudices: an experimental study of confirmatory bias in the peer review system,” Cognitive Therapy and Research 1, (1977):161–75, DOI: 10.1007/BF01173636 (accessed 30 January 2025).
Back to article
13Mahoney, “Publication prejudices.”
Back to article
14Lowell A. Goldsmith et al., “Picking your peers,” Journal of Investigative Dermatology 126, no. 7 (2006):1429–1430, https://www.jidonline.org/article/S0022-202X(15)32988-2/fulltext (accessed 30 January 2025).
Back to article
15Richard Walker and Pascal Rocha da Silva, “Emerging trends in peer review—a survey,” Frontiers in Neuroscience 9, (2015): 169, DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2015.00169 (accessed 30 January 2025).
Back to article
16Amber E. Budden et al., “Double-blind review favours increased representation of female authors,” Trends in Ecology & Evolution 23, (2008): 4–6, DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2007.07.008 (accessed 30 January 2025); Thomas J. Webb, Bob O’Hara, and Robert P. Freckleton “Does double-blind review benefit female authors?,” Trends in Ecology & Evolution 23, no. 7 (2008): 351–353, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2008.03.003 (accessed 30 January 2025); Samuel Madden and David DeWitt, “Impact of double-blind reviewing on SIGMOD publication rates,” ACM SIGMOD Record 35, no.2 (2006): 29–32, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/1147376.1147381 (accessed 30 January 2025); Anthony K. H. Tung, “Impact of double blind reviewing on SIGMOD publication: A more detail analysis,” ACM SIGMOD Record 35, no. 3 (2006): 6–7, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/1168092.1168093 (accessed 30 January 2025).
Back to article
17Fytton Rowland, “The peer–review process,” Learned Publishing, 15, no. 4 (2002) 247–258, DOI: 10.1087/095315102760319206 (accessed 31 January 2025).
Back to article
18Inna Smirnova, Daniel M. Romero, and Misha Teplitskiy, “The bias-reducing effect of voluntary anonymization of authors’ identities: Evidence from peer review,” Available at SSRN 4190623 (2023), DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.4190623 (accessed 31 January 2025).
Back to article
19Yue Guo, Fu Xin, and Stuart J. Barnes. “The Fiction of Double-Blind Reviewing: Evidence From the Social Science Research Network,” International Journal of Business Communication 59, no.1 (2022) 48–55, DOI: 10.1177/2329488418803655 (accessed 31 January 2025); Daniel Cressey, “Journals weigh up double-blind peer review,” Nature (2014), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2014.15564 (accessed 31 January 2025).
Back to article
20Gordon, “The advantages of a simple system of optional published refereeing.”
Back to article
21Andrew Tomkins, Min Zhang, and William D. Heavlin, “Reviewer bias in single-versus double-blind peer review,” PNAS, 114, no. 48 (2017): 12708–12713, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1707323114 (accessed 31 January 2025).
Back to article
22Fengyuan Liu, Talal Rahwan, and Bedoor AlShebli, “Non-White scientists appear on fewer editorial boards, spend more time under review, and receive fewer citations,” PNAS 120, no. 13 (2023): e2215324120, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2215324120 (accessed 31 January 2025).
Back to article
23Charles W. Fox, Jennifer Meyer, and Emilie Aimé, “Double-blind peer review affects reviewer ratings and editor decisions at an ecology journal,” Functional Ecology 37, no. 5 (2023): 1144–1157, DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.14259 (accessed 31 January 2025).
Back to article
24E. Wager et al., “Science journal editors’ views on publication ethics: results of an international survey,” Journal of Medical Ethics 35, (2009): 348–53, DOI: 10.1136/jme.2008.028324 (accessed 31 January 2025).
Back to article
25Pritpal S. Tamber, “The trouble with medical journals by Richard Smith: an alternative view,” BMJ 334 (2006): 1444–7, DOI: 10.1136/bmj.39098.446065.59 (accessed 31 January 2025).
Back to article

Impact of institutional affiliation bias in the peer review process

Abstract

Paradigm

My account