Peer Review Week 2018: eLife thanks reviewers for their contributions

4,845 researchers reviewed 2,392 full submissions to eLife in the last year, helping to increase collaboration and transparency within the review process.

This Peer Review Week we’d like to express our sincere thanks to all the reviewers of manuscripts submitted to eLife over the last year. Between September 1, 2017 to August 31, 2018, our reviewers collectively peer-reviewed 2,392 articles, volunteering countless hours of careful attention in support of improving published research.

our reviewers collectively peer-reviewed 2,392 articles

At eLife, our goal is to make peer review constructive and collaborative. Reviewers engage in an open discussion and agree on their major comments before sharing feedback with the author. Our aim is that, as a result, authors spend less time on revisions – and that requests for re-review by the referees are limited.

A concern has always been the time required by referees for the consultation. In a regular survey of our reviewers*, 70% said they spent about the same amount of time reviewing for eLife as they do for other journals, while 30% said they spent more time reviewing manuscripts for eLife. Crucially, however, 94% considered this as time well-spent.

We also believe that transparency is important to improving the quality of peer review. To that end, we publish the most substantive points from the decision letter after review, along with the reviewers’ names, where they allow. Over the last two years, approximately one third of our reviewers have provided additional transparency by revealing their names to the authors.

While we’re thankful to all our reviewers for their invaluable contributions, we’re especially grateful to the following, who fully embrace transparency and have consistently agreed to reveal their names to authors:

Explore the full list here.

* Feedback is invited from all eLife reviewers after the review process is completed; the results here relate to responses received between September 2017 and July 2018 (n= 371).

We welcome comments, questions and feedback. Please annotate publicly on the article or contact us at editorial [at] elifesciences [dot] org.

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