Will Paying Reviewers Ease the Peer Review Crisis?

"As a Ph.D. student, peer reviewing was quite rewarding. It let me engage with new research and contribute to the field. Over the years, as I matured as a scholar, the volume of requests became unmanageable, with a lot of requests arriving from fields far outside my area of expertise. It clearly reflected the desperation of the editors."

"The current system of unpaid reviews undermines the standards of the peer-review process. It produces late reviews [and] thin reviews and excludes large segments of the research community who cannot afford to work for free. If you have a financial commitment from the reviewer, it creates a lever for expecting quality. Payment creates accountability, not corruption."

"Like academics across the globe, Kunst was caught in the peer-review crisis driven by a growing number of submissions and a scarcity of qualified experts to review them. The fragile peer-review system has long relied on the free labor of academics who are often also juggling teaching, research and administrative duties. Meanwhile, the for-profit academic publishing industry generates more than $19 billion in annual revenue by selling access to peer-reviewed journals."

"To test that hypothesis, in 2022 Kunst helped launch Advances in Psychology, which pays peer reviewers $100 per completed review, provided it meets the journal's standards. Four years later, the data shows that even what may seem like a nominal payment to many reviewers l"

Peer review relies heavily on unpaid academic labor while submissions increase and qualified reviewers become scarce. This creates delays and superficial reviews and can exclude researchers who cannot afford to work without compensation. During the pandemic, publication growth intensified these pressures and prompted scrutiny of the system. A proposed solution is to pay reviewers to create accountability and encourage quality. In 2022, Advances in Psychology began paying $100 per completed review that meets journal standards. After four years, the results indicate that even modest payment can affect reviewer behavior and review outcomes.

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