Mark your calendars! Peer Review Week 2024 will take place from 23 to 27 September 2024. Attend this event if you want to be at the forefront of peer review’s future.
With a theme of ‘Innovation and Technology in Peer Review’, this year’s event will explore how cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) revolutionise scholarly communication. Peer Review Week (PRW) is a global event that brings together a diverse array of stakeholders, including researchers, publishers, editors, and other professionals within the scholarly communication ecosystem.
This collaborative approach promotes idea exchange, the sharing of best practices, and the collective exploration of solutions for peer review challenges.
The academic landscape is rapidly changing in terms of technological developments and a renewed focus on research integrity, diversity, and inclusivity. Despite these changes, peer review remains steadfast. It sits at the core of these transformations and is pivotal as the bedrock of academic diligence and quality assurance.
Innovation and technology are transforming the peer review process through AI-powered tools and algorithms. These tools offer potential opportunities to enhance efficiency, transparency, and rigour. They can automate administrative tasks, assist decision-making, streamline workflows, and expedite the sharing of scholarly insights. AI tools also have the capability to identify ethical problems, discrepancies, and potential misconduct, thereby strengthening the peer review process against violations of research integrity.
PRW 2024 emphasises the importance of maintaining the integrity of the research system while incorporating these technological advancements. In addition, the upcoming week will also emphasise the importance of transparency and accountability within peer review.
As the industry grapples with new and evolving research integrity challenges connected to AI, the event offers a platform to discuss how technology can improve the transparency of peer review, ensuring that the process remains fair, rigorous, and trustworthy.
The theme ‘Innovation and Technology in Peer Review’ recognises the need to bring together experts from various fields to solve some of the most important issues facing the world today. This theme aims to promote the sharing of ideas and foster collaboration across diverse disciplines in order to improve the peer review process and push forward research on a global scale.
This year’s topic, therefore, also emphasises the crucial role of diversity, equity, and inclusion. To tackle complex, interdisciplinary problems, it’s essential to have a diverse group of reviewers from different fields and backgrounds. To keep up with changes, it’s important to work together and to use technology to supplement, not replace, human skills.
The focus of Peer Review Week 2024 will discuss how we can smoothly combine new technology with traditional peer review, enabling reviewers to make the most of AI tools while continuing to play a fundamental role in the process.
This year’s PRW serves as an exciting platform not only to celebrate the community’s remarkable achievements and contributions but also to chart a course for the future.
At PA EDitorial, we take our responsibilities and commitment to peer review and academic publishing seriously. Our CEO, Lizi Dawes, is actively involved in key platforms where we can contribute and make a difference. For this reason, Lizi is about to join the Peer Review Week Steering Committee – an exciting prospect for PA EDitorial to become part of peer review’s future. Lizi is also an active member of the ALPSP Artificial Intelligence Special Interest Group, which focuses on the application of AI in scholarly publishing, particularly generative AI. The theme of PRW this year is definitely a passion of PA Editorial’s CEO.
To help support global diversity and collaboration, Lizi serves on the ISMTE European Advisory Council. The committee’s mission is to offer networking opportunities, training, and industry-proven best practices to editorial office staff working in scholarly publications worldwide. These opportunities can enhance their skills, help them produce exceptional journals, and make them feel proud of their work.
We hope that you will thoroughly enjoy Peer Review Week and gain invaluable insights into the latest developments within our industry. Join our social channels for all the latest updates on everything related to PWR!