The ethical guidelines propose two general criteria for selecting potential reviewers: subject expertise and the lack of competing interests. These are contradictory criteria, however. Subject expertise of a potential reviewer manifests itself in the publications that are closely related to the subject of the manuscript under review. Therefore the review might be biased either positively or negatively depending on whether reviewer’s publications are cited in the manuscript or not.
Then, how to select potential reviewers if only non-specialists may have no competing interests? Could we all agree that those whose publications are cited in the submitted manuscript are eligible to review the manuscript?
Being a specialist does not mean that one necessarily has a competing interest. There are lots of honourable specialists, with significant integrity and expertise who can objectively review a manuscript on a topic in which the peer reviewer has considerable knowledge.
Thanks for the answer. I agree: competing interests does necessarily influence review, if it is written by a honourable specialist. But we already have to exclude from the list of potential reviewers those of the honourable specialists who are working in the same organization, and those who were our collaborators or co-authors within last 3-5 years, and those who are friendly towards us. If we start excluding those whom we are simply citing in our papers, then who will review our manuscripts? I think we should ask those who are writing ethical guidelines (e.g., Committee on Publication Ethics) to make it clear that specialists whose works are cited in a manuscript are eligible to review this manuscript.
There are over 10,000 journal and publisher members of COPE. COPE has valuable guidelines for publication ethics. The two journals that I edited for many decades are both COPE members. While not everyone who reviews manuscripts does an equally good job, I have been gratified for many years to have honourable, ethical specialists do the very heavy-lifting that is the voluntary service of peer-review. This is service to the profession and many people do this well because they know how important their contribution is to the critical growth of new knowledge.
It seems that I do not completely understand your point. Do you mean that being a specialist in a subject does not mean that one necessarily has publications closely related to this subject?
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