Abstract
This article suggests to view peer review as a social interaction problem and shows reasons for social simulators to investigate it. Although essential for science, peer review is largely understudied and current attempts to reform it are not supported by scientific evidence. We suggest that there is room for social simulation to fill this gap by spotlighting social mechanisms behind peer review at the microscope and understanding their implications for the science system. In particular, social simulation could help to understand why voluntary peer review works at all, explore the relevance of social sanctions and reputational motives to increase the commitment of agents involved, cast light on the economic cost of this institution for the science system and understand the influence of signals and social networks in determining biases in the reviewing process. Finally, social simulation could help to test policy scenarios to maximise the efficacy and efficiency of various peer review schemes under specific circumstances and for everyone involved.
Highlights
This article suggests to view peer review as a social interaction problem and shows reasons for social simulators to investigate it
1.2 More importantly, peer review encapsulates the very idea of science that new lines of research are experimentally pursued by scientists through a continuous, decentralised and socially shared trial and error process
As the scientific journal publishing market is estimated to growing steadily at about 3.5% annually since the 1970s, we can realise the over-exploitation of this important mechanism, not to mention the case of books, research grants, universities and research institutes' productivity evaluation where peer review is involved
Summary
1.1 Peer review is one of the most important facets that makes science a complex social system. It is applied to many spheres of scientific activity such as funding, publication, recruitment and even research productivity evaluation. It is essential for institutional agencies in evaluating research grants, for journal and book editors to evaluate the quality of submissions, for scientists to increase the quality of their work, as well as for policy makers to guarantee that taxpayer money is invested in a credible and well functioning system (Squazzoni 2010). Scientists interact in different roles as journal editors, authors and reviewers This intensive interaction is guided by a complex set of socially shared norms and values that are the essence of the 'scientific method'. The normative foundations of science include the importance of communalism, universalism, disinterestedness and organised scepticism (Merton 1973), but we can add the objective search for truth, respect for evidence, tolerance, trust and reputation among peers (Durant and Ibrahim 2011)
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