See these previous discussions:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why-the-article-reviewing-peer-review-in-Journal-and-Conference-is-a-voluntary-work

https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_many_researchers_think_publishers_journals_should_pay_for_their_content_and_also_for_peer_review

https://www.researchgate.net/post/If_there_is_ever_going_to_be_a_time_peer_reviewers_will_be_paid_for_their_services_the_time_is_now

And here is another related discussion:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Reviewers_participation_should_be_considered_too

At least the journals should provide some benefits to the reviewers

I never heard about examples that peer reviewers of journals are payed. However, Cambridge University Press "payed" for peer review of submitted books by providing free copies of other books which the reviewer could select from their catalogue. If I remember correctly, the value of the books is about 100 GBP per review. (The costs for the publisher for providing the books are of course much lower.)

For each review, MDPI provides 50/100 CHF tax discount for the submission of an open access article (the publisher publishes only open access articles).

Wolfgang R. Dick Some journals pay to the reviewers: «Taylor & Francis Group, a small selection of journals focused on pharmaceutical development pay peer reviewers for accelerated reviews» https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/450-question-should-journals-pay-peer-reviewers . Also I received a payment once for peer review work in a non-profit journal and not indexed in WOS or SCOPUS.

Tania Lucía Cobos : Many thanks for this information. This may be very different in different fields of science.

At the moment the payments are just for editor in chief and managing editor, but I think scientific community should reconsider this under concept of "reviewer Vs. Publisher" or "editor Vs. publisher" or "author Vs. Publisher", as reviewers and editors have to take the returns of their efforts, especially if the publisher is a profitable company?

I completely agree, this may accelerate the revision process and you wont need to wait for months to get you article published. one of the editors told me that they're having some trouble finding reviewers lately, so paying them may solve this problem.

Hi

I think if reviewers are paid... It would be beneficial because of two factors.. One time bound to review the manuscript within the stipulated time and second when reviewers are paid.. Work quality assessment will b much better than earlier...

Journals should pay for peer review work so that the review work will be still better and more rigorous.

I absolutely believe that the reviewers should be paid for their reviewing services. We are living in an age where even a small service offered by someone gets paid. I believe the reviewers should be paid for the following reasons:

1- Reviewing a paper is a time taking and mentally energy-consuming task.

2- Because the reviewers are not paid, many of the reviewers do not show much interest, hence the peer-review process takes much longer.

3- Because the reviewers do not show interest, the journals have to find other reviewers who can do the job for them, which ultimately compels the authors to wait longer to see their paper being published.

Therefore, in my opinion, if the journals start to pay the reviewers for their services, the peer-review process can be much more faster and, in the end, everyone can be happy, journals; reviewers, and authors.

We're struggling with this. Our past was no payment. Today, more often, payment is offered and more people want to be part of it. Our struggle is that the payments are coming from companies that are paying to have studies done to show their research and products in very favorable terms. This process is hidden from the reviewer. As is the larger payments also provided to the publisher from the originating company. In crude terms many of us are looking upon this as publications and reviewers being paid corporate influencers. - A recent example is a peer reviewer dismayed to find later they had approved (very favorable) medical research paid for by JUUL.

Its a complex problem; publishers are struggling to keep the journals financially viable and reviewer market has become competitive.

This is very good question

I think the open access journals‘ where the authors pay good amount of money ‘ should pay to the peer reviwers

For free publishing ‘ i think Q1 & 2 journals

good if they consider some amount of money for reviwers

Tania Lucía Cobos

It is a interesting question

I think that to a certain extent, peer review maybe not necessarily need to be paid through fees. If possible, displaying reviewers' review workload on a widely known platform and rating each review through the editor-in-chief or Associate editor of the journal.

It can improve the quality of review and avoid the arbitrary phenomenon of peer review , and increase the visibility of reviewers in the academic community.

Wang Chen; I'd prefer not "rating each review through the editor-in-chief or Associate editor of the journal". I fear that will lead to peer review people looked upon like our social-media-style of likes and dislikes. To me, the antithesis of peer review.

It is an interesting question.

""it is free, that is, researchers donate their time in reviewing the articles that come to them from the different journals that contact them. If they accept the assignment, it can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days to complete, depending on the complexity of the text and the degree of commitment of the reviewer (including their time). Once the report is completed and delivered, the reviewers only receive a thank you email (which serves to feed their records in Publons)"" !

No. It will make a conflict of interest. If the reviewer received a review request outside his field of interest, he might accept for money, and he might accept an enormous number of requests which will affect the quality of the review. I think we can ask for reducing the access fees for journals to make it possible for developing countries. So we review for free, and the publishers decrease the costs for all.

this is a good topic. usually, open acess journal maybe pay off the fee for peer review payment because they have the published fee and interests. submission journal didn't the published fee and interests, they cannot pay off the peer review fee.

This is my opinion.

My general impression is that journals are ready to do anything only not to pay for reviews. I think Publons has even been invented as a kind of a fictive compensation for that work. Just look at Clarivate's statistics: editors need to send invitations to three experts on average in order to get only one review report. Because of the present practice, there is a huge loss of interest in reviewing also affecting the quality (not necessarily consistent with the IF anymore).

As per conflict of interest, we must keep in mind that there are many paid professions whose activities are supposed to include objective evaluation of someone's work, and no one even thinks of saying that their reimbursement represents a conflict of interest. Let's just think of examining students or providing technical expertise...

They will simply find any excise not to pay it because they know that the contribution to community and public engagement is something scientists are expected to do by default.

Finally... I must point out that, despite the above-mentioned, I will continue to review with pleasure because this provides numerous non-material benefits and experience, as well as because I have chosen to be a scientist guided by my personal enthusiasm and thorough intellectual enrichment this job can provide to an individual. However, this does not mean that wealthy publishers (mostly employing non-scientific staff) should misuse it.

Journals from institutions with financial support pay a small fee. However, I think we cannot expect this from every journal. Because, some academic journals are in a really difficult situation for funding.

I know some reputed journals which does an honorarium payments for the reviewers. Sometimes they pay an additional bonus if they complete the review within a specified time as an encouragement. I think this is a good practice.

No

It will make a conflict of interest