Peer review: how can early career researchers get involved?

By Sara Treneman, Editorial Assistant, Peer Review Management at SAGE

This blog post was written in response to this post by one of the SAGE Sussex Hive scholars.

One of the biggest challenges journal editors face is sourcing reviewers. The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has made this challenge even more pronounced as journal submissions have risen but the number of academics available to review has not. However, many early career researchers are keen to gain experience of reviewing but are not being invited to review. To bridge this gap, SAGE is taking some steps to make peer review more accessible to junior researchers.

Co-reviewing

SAGE welcomes reviews from students or junior researchers but acknowledges that they do not always get the recognition or support they deserve. When a junior researcher is writing a review, we ask for a supervisor or mentor to provide guidance and approve the review comments before they are submitted. The junior researcher submits the comments themselves and takes responsibility for the review, but both the junior researcher and their supervisor can receive recognition with Web of Science Reviewer Recognition.

We also encourage journal editors to include wording in reviewer invitation emails to make sure prospective reviewers are aware that they are able to recommend junior colleagues to review if they are unavailable. We aim to make it as clear as possible that SAGE welcomes reviews from early career researchers.

Editor’s guide to mentoring Early Career Researchers

SAGE has created a resource for journal editors who would like to invite junior researchers to review for their journals. It provides useful information on how Editors can get junior researchers involved in reviewing and guidance on what mentoring a junior researcher during peer review would entail, as well as a list of useful resources to share with the mentee. The guide is available on SAGE’s Journal Editor gateway but is also relevant to anyone who is mentoring junior researcher during peer review.

Open Peer Review

SAGE is currently trialling Open Peer Review on one of our journals, Therapeutic Advances in Respiratory Diseases. Review comments are published anonymously alongside the finished article, allowing junior researchers to see the kind of comments reviewers give and compare the review with their own thoughts on the paper. This model of peer review also gives researchers an additional record of their reviewing activities, alongside their Web of Science Reviewer Recognition record. We are continuing to explore open peer review models for our journals and will be pursuing this further in 2021.

Web of Science Reviewer Recognition Training Academy

SAGE is partnered with Web of Science Reviewer Recognition, who provide a free online training course for new reviewers called the Web of Science Academy.  During the course, participants submit practice reviews and are paired with a mentor who provides feedback on their comments. We encourage junior researchers to take this course as it provides practical experience of reviewing and valuable feedback from experienced reviewers.

More resources

If you would like to see what other resources SAGE has for anyone who is new to reviewing, head to SAGE’s Journal Reviewer Gateway. Here you will find a list of useful resources on how to review, as well as a recording of our recent webinar “How to Be a Peer Reviewer”.