It is considered an honour to be invited and serve the profession. Imagine you are invited to review a paper submitted to NEJM or JAMA or the BMJ, will you say NO. It is also a responsibility we should take to keep the science and research moving forward and progressing. It can be part of the CME, and you can receive certificates and credit hours. It is a learning opportunity to keep you learning, enhancing your critical skills, and what is up-to-date or trends in the field. It adds to your professional development and your curriculum vitae. You may end taking positions as editor of a scientific/medical journal. There are several other reasons, this is a big area. However, some journals offer coupons, or discount if you complete a certain number of reviews and you can use these tokens when you submit your own manuscript to get a discount on the article processing fees. This system is used by publishers of BMJ Open, JMIR, MDPI, and others.

Here are some discussions about this question:

https://www.enago.com/academy/should-a-peer-reviewer-be-paid/

https://scientistseessquirrel.wordpress.com/2017/08/22/can-we-stop-saying-reviewers-are-unpaid/

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2018/05/19/when_will_peer_reviewers_finally_get_paid.html

Peer review as a business transaction (https://www.nature.com/articles/517145a)

I agree with you; some small amount of remuneration should be paid to the reviewer; it will make reviewer more enthusiastic which inturns expedidate the reviewing process.

It is considered an honour to be invited and serve the profession. Imagine you are invited to review a paper submitted to NEJM or JAMA or the BMJ, will you say NO. It is also a responsibility we should take to keep the science and research moving forward and progressing. It can be part of the CME, and you can receive certificates and credit hours. It is a learning opportunity to keep you learning, enhancing your critical skills, and what is up-to-date or trends in the field. It adds to your professional development and your curriculum vitae. You may end taking positions as editor of a scientific/medical journal. There are several other reasons, this is a big area. However, some journals offer coupons, or discount if you complete a certain number of reviews and you can use these tokens when you submit your own manuscript to get a discount on the article processing fees. This system is used by publishers of BMJ Open, JMIR, MDPI, and others.

It is time to stop reviewing service as voluntary work. Gone are those ages where publishers promoted science for the shake of development of society and advancement of civilization. Publication has become a trillion dollar business. Profits of leading publishers are beyond imagination. The concept of open access and publishers who promote open access journals have converted academic publication into sheer business. All journals should come forward to pay a honorarium to reviewers and editors. I would also emphasize that publishers should not ask the authors to sign copyright transfer at free of copy. They should pay a honorarium to authors as well to obtain copyright.

Presently journals provide some benefits to reviewers. Some journals provide free access to Scopus for limited days that the reviewer can download unlimited articles. Some journals provide e-books at free of cost from their publications.

I agree with Wolfgang

Isaac Dinaharan has made some very good point to support the opposite opinion. The whole academia shifted their view towards business. At least in Australia, I can see how the university earns money to move on. But the financial life of a researcher does not change much unless some find themselves with funds (fortunate). The researcher works overtime, but there is no such word, overtime, in their profession. Every day, every such overtime became permanently voluntary, suppose to add as a credit that should work to enrich CV. But in reality, everyone in any such pipeline has similar credit to notice the difference. So ultimately all overtimes are becoming unpaid, misery of the researcher's financial life.

Related to the question, a note has been written in below URL:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343382327_Note_from_the_Editor-in-Chief_of_the_Scientometrics_Research_Journal-_Scientific_Bi-Quarterly_Vol_6_Issue_1_Spring_and_Summer_2020_Serial_11_The_challenge_of_scientific_Peer-review_and_its_impact_on_t

I invite you to read it, because I think some its related issues have been araised in the short note.

Best regards

I agree with Isaac Dinaharan, It is time to stop reviewing service as voluntary work. My last submitted manuscript still under review, most of reviwer s did not accept to review.

if an open access journal publishes with free article processing charge (No cost for publishing) then voluntary or honorable service to peer reviewing is acceptable or else its better to get paid. In order to keep the science and research moving forward and progressing, it is also required that the published article should be available free of cost to the research community.

In most occasions, open access publication takes charges from authors. Jagadish Naik

i gree with you

I agree with Dr. Isaac Dinaharan

This is honour for reviewer. However, some journals provide access to download articles, offer concession on books to the reviewer.

I agree with you shirshendu, but not for open access journal.

Yes is voluntary work

Dr. Isaac Dinaharan pointed out the problems that currently exist in the reviewing process in the best possible way. Despite numerous publications and journals, publishers and editors continue to dominate on the authors and reviewers. And they do not consider any salaries for these two groups. While this is completely wrong, and according to Dr. Dinaharan, it is time to stop free reviewing, and in the near future, the copyright of the articles should be preserved for the authors.

I agree with Isaac Dinaharan and I see it right to stop free reviewing, and the authors copyright of the articles should be preserved.

At least the journals should provide some benefits to the reviewer, like free access to some databases or free of charge for publication or at least certificate or some points as CME, it is really huge responsibility and take time to review some articles, I reviewed several articles the journal sent me everyday where is your comments and then I received "Thank you", why the journal asks huge amounts of dollars for publication and nothing for reviewers, this work should not be free anymore since journals and publications became a business as Isaac Dinaharan said!

While it is true that reviewing papers (and research grants) is a LOT of unpaid work, the scientific community would have no peer-reviewed publications without it. I have reviewed hundreds of papers and grants over the past 45 years, always unpaid, as part of my duties to the scientific community. It is a thankless, but necessary, duty.

What about making the review process part of an academic job? This would increase the number of positions in Universities, relared costs etc. but it could give the reviewing process institutional recognition as a consistent and reliable chack of the scientific output

Hello all: I want push back a bit about reviewing being unpaid. I do not know of any journals that directly pay reviewers so I am in agreement with this sentiment. However, many universities, especially research oriented universities in the USA see professors as having three duties: research, teaching and service. Service, broadly defined, includes service inside (e.g., committee work) and outside of the university. So reviewing as well as other contributions (e.g., holding an office in a national organization) outside of the university are seen (by knowledgeable faculty and administrators) as valuable. Providing reviews and other journal functions (e.g., editors) contributes to a fulfilling of the "service" element of the previously mentioned 3 responsibilities and plays a role in promotion and tenure. Hence, I believe, albeit in a small fashion, reviewing contributes to tenure and promotion. And of course what comes with tenure and promotion is a salary raise that is applied to every year subsequent to the promotion and tenure. Hence, reviewing is not unpaid if the above argument is seen as having merit. Finally, reviewing is also a mechanism for continued education and making connections in the field, both of which are valuable outcomes of reviewing, particularly sustained reviewing. Professional connections can lead to a host of benefits such as collaborations on research and grants and of course professional social support.