Peer Review, Psychology and Economy `

What is the role of Peer Review?

• The aim of science is to produce a body of knowledge by conducting research.

• What matters is how this is communicated to the public and scientific community.

• Research must be subject to peer review.

• It must be scrutinised.

• Experts who are scrutinising should be objective and anonymous to the researcher.

What are the aims of Peer Review?

• To allocate reseach funding: peer review also takes place to decide whether to award funding of a research project or not. This could be co-ordinated by government-run organisations who are interested in establishing worthwhile research projects.

• To validate the quality of the research relevance: All research elements are assessed for wuality and accuracy. Eg: the formulation of hypotheses.

• Suggest amendments and improvements.

What are strengths of Peer Review?

• Anonymity gives more honesty

• Research is made better and more reliable

What are limiations of Peer Review?

• Anonymity can be used to criticise due to grudges. Because of this, some researchers prefer open reviews where reviewers’ names are made public.

• Publication bias: There is a natural tendency for editors of journals to want to publish significant headline reasearch projects or publish positive research and ingore negative findings.

• Competition of funding could influence decisions when reviews take place.

• Ground-breaking research may be buried or criticised as it could oppose mainstream theories.

• Findings that align with current opinion are more likely to be passed than innovative research that challenges the established order.