IMPROVING THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Abstract

SUMMARY: The peer review process has been regarded as an essential part of accepting or rejecting a paper for publication since 1752 when the process was started by The Royal Society of London in the publication entitled “Philosophical Transactions”. In developing countries, one of the primary reasons for submitting pieces for publication is to support promotion in universities. In fact, the argument can be made that the only reason for publishing in developing countries is for faculty promotion. Despite the peer review process being standard practice for scientic journals, many of the research publications on COVID-19 were not subjected to the peer review system. In fact, numerous publications were pre-prints and papers shared by researchers online which were not peer reviewed, yet they were accepted and published by scientic journals in developing nations. When authors start to lose condence in the peer review process of a journal, they are not likely to submit their research work to such journals and this can lead to a diminished impact and reputation of such journals. Additionally, the selection of the assessors by the Editor-in -Chief is usually from the academic space of the editor and from the colleagues of the editor that usually share the editor's view. Contrary to what some editors in the developing countries believe, medical and academic administrative positions do not necessarily result in expertise in the peer review process. An editor can easily identify a poor assessment of an article, from the vitriolic feed-back of the author to the editor about an assessor when a paper is not recommended for publication. This paper provides evidence of and outlines the possible reasons that the peer review process is substandard in developing countries.