Peer Review Week Returns for the Third Year

May 2, 2017 – Following on from the success of Peer Review Week 2016, a group of organizations is working collaboratively to plan a week of activities and events to strengthen and celebrate peer review for the third year in a row.

The theme of Peer Review Week 2017 is Transparency in Review, a topic that will allow the community to explore a wide range of opportunities and challenges that this presents for peer review.  It will run from 11 – 17 September, with activities taking place on social media and across the globe.

Planned activities include virtual and in-person events including webinars, videos, interviews and social media activities designed to improve understanding of the principle of peer review and how it is practiced within the scholarly community.

To kick off the week’s activities, Peer Review Week organisers will run a panel discussion as a satellite session following the Peer Review Congress (Chicago, 10-12 September).  The panel will be held at 5:30 p.m. CDT, September 12 directly after the close of the Congress, and will consist of a moderator and four panelists representing researchers, publishers, funders, peer review innovators and science commentators.  Panelists will be asked to respond to a wide range of questions both gathered in advance of the event and from the audience.  The discussion is expected to last 90 minutes, and will lay the groundwork for the rest of Peer Review Week.

A list of other Peer Review Week events and activities, as well as a range of resources and information are available on the website www.peerreviewweek.org which will be updated over the coming months. Throughout the week many organizations will join in the celebrations with additional activities.

Get involved

If you would like to get involved please send your contributions and ideas to PRWeek@aaas.org using the subject line ‘Peer Review Week’ and include a brief description of the event or resource you would like featured on the Peer Review Week website.  We especially encourage organizations that conduct peer review outside of publishing to participate, including funders and research institutions.

Help us promote Peer Review Week and join the conversation on social media by using the Twitter hashtags #PeerRevWk17 and #TransparencyinReview.

The idea for the first Peer Review Week, held in 2015, grew out of informal conversations between ORCID, ScienceOpen, Sense About Science, and Wiley, the organizations that planned and launched the initiative in 2015.

In 2017, 29 organizations are participating in the Peer Review Week organizing committee.  Coordinating efforts enables wide and powerful sharing of the message that quality peer review, whatever shape or form it might take, is critical to scholarly communications.

“It’s truly inspiring to see how enthusiasm for and participation in Peer Review Week has grown since our first small steps in 2015. This year’s theme of transparency is especially timely and important. Ensuring that the peer review process is transparent to reviewers and readers alike, whether or not that process itself is open or anonymized, builds understanding and trust in scholarly communications. And that’s something we can all agree is a very worthy goal,” commented Peer Review Week Chair, Alice Meadows.

For more information, and to get involved with Peer Review Week activities, visit www.peerreviewweek.org and follow the hashtags #PeerRevWk17 and  #TransparencyinReview on Twitter.

Organizing Committee:

AAAS
AAUP
ACS Publications
AMRC
Aries Systems
Editage
Editorial Office Ltd
eLife
Elsevier
Emerald Publishing
F1000
Federation of European Microbiological Societies INASP Informa ISMTE JAMA/ Peer Review Congress OHRI ORCID OSA PEERE Publons SAGE Publishing Science Open Sense About Science Springer Nature Taylor and Francis The Royal Society UGR Wiley