I do not hink that we should be paid for peer reviewing. I'm not sure that money guarantee any objective review. It's a part of our job to assess the work of other researcher in our field and it's should not be considered as time spent outside normal working hours. I'm not even sure what normal workink hours mean in our fantastic jobs. Shall I be paid more when I work on a paper or a lecture on Sunday afternoon ?

Maybe reviewers might be paid to send their review in time or close to the journal's deadline... just because time is precious, both for authors and reviewers.

Of course they can reject the paper: it's only "time" that would be paid... that's my own opinion.

In my experience, payment and contracts might actually slow everything down. I've personally waited months in the past for a university to agree to a contract, even because they were my employer at the time. In many places, there may even be legal issues (e.g., working visa requirements). For a panel of reviewers, permanently retained, the model might work, but not for ad hoc reviews, and you often need these when none of your retained reviewers has the precise experience needed for a given review.

But I do think you're onto something. If there is a positive credit for a record of speedy (and accurate, constructive) reviews, one that could add to a public score, that could work well. But like the other commenters, I suspect the community could achieve this at least as well as a paid model.

So, the researchers seem to prefer to work on a voluntary basis, or even consider reviewing as a part of their duties. But provocatively, do you think that it's fear to spend pubblic money (a fraction of your salary) for private revenue, and worse, you being a mediator of such a public-money appropriation? How much does cost one of your working hours ? How many hours do you need to review an article fairly and objectively, eventually doing some literature research and reading few articles? You are an expert in the domain; it takes you few hours; You are not right in this domain; it takes you a day or more.

The more publication you get and the more likely you are to be granted for further research, which could have positive impact on many different levels. So I really do not consider the system as relying on public-money appropriation.

If you are not right in a domain, then refuse the expertise. The editor did not select the right reviewer.

Catherine, your first response is about publication, but the issue is about the reviewer. I nevertheless agree that paying for your publication being published is to be considered, although given the enormous profits of the publishers, this should be regularized by public institutions.

As for the expertise of the reviewers, think how often does it happen that all reviewers are expert on the topic/problem? Never. Usually one is an expert in the topic, another is a specialist on the methods and another on the domain. The last two need to get informed about the state of art in the topic. This distribution is probably well motivated, since a publication should reach the researchers in the domain and not only the expert in the topic/problem.

I do not agree with you for the second part. The editor has to choose expert reviewers and it is always the case in cognitive psychology. It might be different in other field of research though.

I updated my question with a much stronger proposal, to give the compensation to the institution in which a researcher works. This could compensate money given for journals; add a new researcher evaluation dimension (or at least, formalize it), and redistribute lots of probably improper earnings.

For the first part, I just mean that public money goes to private sectors and goes back to public areas and so forth.

Catherine, I'm in the cognitive psychology domain, too. According to my experience, it's (almost) never the case that all reviewers are experts in your topic. They are experts in the domain, but not necessarily in your topic. This requires them to get updated, at the cost of up to a day, or so.

p.s. Taxation is just the way we have money for research. The first issue is how fear is the publisher's profits ? There are already movements against excessive profits of companies such as Elsevier etc. The second issue is to recognize the work of the reviewer, and to put some norms, e.g., take out requirements such as review within 10 days or so.

I would actually vote against this. Paying reviewers would mean that journals would have to charge more for their publications (or maybe not have to, but they would) and they are already quite expensive for universities to buy. Indeed, even if the university gets paid for you reviewing, they end up having to pay more for the journal. There is no net gain (indeed, a net loss in transaction/currency conversion fees). We should all do reviews just to be responsible academics (it's part of the job). The (small) rewards we get back for doing so are being able to add journals to the "Ad Hoc Reviewer" section of our CVs and the ability to keep up-to-date (sooner) with what our colleagues are doing.

I totally agree that reviewers should be pay for theIr job...as anybody should!

I like the idea to establish a contract.

Nowadays who is a reviewer? A name a friends a contact an author....that you ask about an article. Period. Too light in my opinion. So not only the money issue BUT defenetely we need, we urge a WELL-ESTABLISHED-PEER-REVIEW-CONTRACT!

Let's call it the INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC PEER REVIEW PROJECT (:-)!!!!

It is ridiculous to imagine that professional reviewers could be paid for the reviews. Of course reviewers are other specialized scientists of a specific field. The authors who think that the reviewers are simply friends of the editor (or the guy who was just walking in the corridor) do no have an accurate representation of the editorial world.

Serious editors hardly consider giving a reviewing task to whichever "friend" (by the way, why should a friend be given one more work?). Sure good editors choose good specialists. There might be exceptions, but the impact is the final judgment.

Catherine, I'm sure that many researchers agree with your opinion, but should not this be the same for reviewers of (e.g.) European projects? The burden is greater there, but the nature of the work is very similar.

Then, you might have noticed that I "updated" my proposal to compensate not the reviewers, but their institutions. This allows a formal recognition of this work and allows for researechers to contribute to the budget of their institution. High-quality institutions could thus dramatically decrease their journal-access expenses.

I agree that for European projects, the nature of the job is quite similar. It always take me longer though to review a project than a paper .... Anyway, I was very surprised when I was told that I was going to be paid for my ESRC evaluations and actually I do not think that I claimed the money. On my point of view, it is part of my duty and I'm already paid for that by my institution.

@Catherine: I have serious examples to give, not here of course. This it not ridiculous but serious (:-)!

@Alessandro : I've just read your paper : How to Manage Rejected Scientific Papers? UNAIS as Final Solution. So I see where you come from with your comments.

In Experimental Psychology and in good journals, 80 to 90 % of the papers are rejected thanks to scrupulous and expert reviewers. We would not like to have higher rates of acceptation because we can be pretty sure that when an article is published in Cognition of the Journal of the Experimental Psychology, the results, the theory and the conclusions are reliable. Again, I know that because expert reviewers who are not paid for this job have given their consent for publicaiton. Publishing rejected papers would create a huge mess and not a single result or conclusion could be trustworthy anymore.

Catherine, we totally agree on the quality of reviewing needed and the unfortunately high percentage on improperly done research.

We might have had the same position on the compensation issue should the researchers had been equally considered in all countries.

@ Catherine: thank you for your input and your opinion which I do truly respect the content but not at all the wording.

1) In fact I would appreciate that you respect others' opinions even/specially with criticism BUT with appropriate wording and conclusions!

I would never use "ridiculous" and "create a huge mess" expression in this sitting (forum). You a have the possibility the send personal messages ...particularly for those more confidentials. This is a code for everybody and we have to respect it!

Rules and regulations are the basis of a "free world" ...other than that it will be the "cowboy world" or "cowboy gate.net" Please laugh (:-)))

2) UNAIS has nothing to do with reviewer process. The primary concept is different and well defined.

Please read again my paper on the Unpublished: it is not a matter of "creating a huge mess"

By the way to stay in the Ivilin subject: what's wrong to define a reviewers' rules?

Rules and regulations ..!!!

With all my regards,

Alessandro

@ Alessandro : Sorry if I used words that you judged offensive. I did not mean to be unrespectul and I just wanted to express my opinion.

@ Ilker : True that we need also to consider new and young experts who are really happy and flattered to be asked to judge their peer's production. It also constitutes a perfecr ground for new researchers for sharpening their critical sense.

@ Catherine: (:-)

@Ilker: I do agree with your opinion. Every single job on this earth should be remunerated! Unless you choose voluntarism...a personal and not others' choice!

I think its essential that reviewers are paid especially with publishers like Elsevier making such a huge profit on selling journal subscriptions to Universities. I find it strange that academics find it normal to work for free, even if grants them some sort of unquantifiable prestige. If we want turn around times to decrease and publishing to be improved then publishers must be ready to give incentives to reviewers.

I agree with James that payments probably wouldn't work well in practice, but on the other hand, I think reviewers (who are also usually authors) should be bolder in using their freely provided services as a lever to try to make publishers more reasonable. In my experience, many of the requirements in "Instructions for Authors" are for things that make life easier for the (paid) publisher rather than the (voluntary) reviewers, which is surely the wrong way around. E.g. some journals make a fuss about having figures uploaded separately (because that makes the production process easier) even though as I reviewer, I would find it easier to review a manuscript with the figures at the correct points in the manuscript, rather than all bunched together at the end of the constructed PDF. Similarly, some journals make a fuss about how journal names are abbreviated in the references, when this is completely irrelevant for most reviewers; in contrast, reviewers would benefit from the PDF containing hyperlinks (e.g. DOIs) to references where available, though few if any journals seem to request this, even though many reference management software tools could do it easily. Sorry for the slightly off-topic answer!

I'm glad somebody has put up this issue. Reviewing is a tedious task which involves high professional and academic input. Unfortunately, it is neither considered in the promotion policies or for any other professional benefit. I have reviewed a number of research papers without any payment, however, one journal offered a month's access to Scopus and another to its resources. Recently, some journals in Pakistan have started paying and I'm waiting for two reviews' payment...but it is peanuts. Your suggestion of 'GIVE THE MONEY BACK TO THE UNIVERSITY' sounds interesting but with such little amount I don't know how can it work! I agree with James that it helps us to "keep up-to-date (sooner) with what our colleagues are doing" and that's what has kept me motivated all along.

When I review a paper, I do not feel "exploited" by the system because I'm very happy that other experts review my own papers. It's a free exchange and I still do not understand why people want to introduce even more corruption in this system by paying the reviewers.

When there is a journal which do not profits from their work should not pay for reviewers specially when these are from developing countries (Latin America, for example). Many of these journals are working with volunteers working with other stimuli other than money. There are academic stimuli which are more satisfactory for them.

In my opinion, reviewers shall be paid based on the expertise they have. Its very much ON for reviewing the technical correctness of books. Recently, I was paid for reviewing the mathematical equations of a book. Many a times, once the reviews are received from a Journal, the reviewers arent interested to review in time thus delaying the feed back time to the authors. Such a situation can be improved too.

Award or Reward would certainly encourage the reviewer interest. Many a times I have faced the problem that i had to spend valuable time to review and for what. But then you know we researchers are passionate about it.

I vote for Award or Reward

In my opinion, if the journal publishes paper for free, the whole Review procedure should be also for free. But if there is a fee for publishing - the Reviewers should be paid. That would be fair!

stop guys, it's not abot the money at all! To myself, reviewing paper for the high quality journal is a honour. I do not care, how big is profit of the journal or publishing house. So, please do not mix science and money making. writing reviews for money will ruin the whole scientific community.

To pay university or institution for the reviews provided is less flaved idea. we may discuss it further, but please - reviewing should remain not paid and honoured job.

@ Ivilin: Serious scientists and researchers never mind about honorarium for review. Moreover, publishers cannot compensate for the precious time spent by the reviewers. It is only for the cause of science. However, the journal publishers may allow honorarium for review as it would motivate them to complete the review task early amidst their hectic schedule.

Not the employer but a reviewer should be compensated based on the quality of his review as done by some publishers

pls find the link below of publisher which rewards good reviews

http://www.sciencedomain.org/page.php?id=sdi-general-editorial-policy#SDI_Peer_review_mechanism