ArticleResearch integrity and peer review2021
A billion-dollar donation: estimating the cost of researchers' time spent on peer review.
Article in Research integrity and peer review, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 61 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
61 citing papers in PubMed.
- Beyond Grammar: A Structural Scientific Writing Workflow for Non-native English Speakers.Journal of general internal medicine · 2026Article
- How contemporary academic structures constrain scientific creativity and hold back early-career researchers.Nature human behaviour · 2026Review
- Discovery Stack Pilot demonstrates the feasibility and outcomes of a scientist-designed peer-review model that separates quality and impact.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Is there a limit to limitations? A proposal for structured limitations reporting in scientific manuscripts.BMC medical research methodology · 2026Article
- Large Language Models and the Future of Peer-Reviewed Medical Publishing: Challenges, Editorial Responses, and a Framework for Responsible Integration.Journal of Korean medical science · 2026Review
- Behavior characteristics of peer reviewers in medical journals: a survey from China.Research integrity and peer review · 2026Article
- Motivations and barriers to engaging in peer review: a qualitative study.Research integrity and peer review · 2026Article
- EQUATOR reporting guideline use and editorial enforcement in four medical specialties: a cross-sectional study of 20 high-impact journals.BMC medical research methodology · 2026Article
- Susceptibility of large language models to hidden nudge injection during simulated medical peer review: a quasi-experimental study.Research integrity and peer review · 2026Article
- Effectiveness of the researcher-led "Peerspectives" peer review training course on review quality, knowledge, and skills among doctoral students in the biomedical sciences: a pre-post study.Research integrity and peer review · 2026Article
- A transparent universal credit system to incentivize peer review.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Demonstrations of reproducibility are not reproducibility.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Paying peer reviewers: benefits, risks, and challenges.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2026Review
- Symbolic scarcity and epistemic waste: a systems theory of academic publishing failure.Research integrity and peer review · 2026Review
- Should AI have a position on the JSCC editorial board?Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2026Article
- The publish or perish, publish and perish, publish then perish, and now retract and perish cultures in academia.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2026Article
- What are the limits to biomedical research acceleration through general-purpose AI?Scientific reports · 2026Review
- Article
- From existence checking to semantic auditing: citation verifiability in the age of AI.Frontiers in research metrics and analytics · 2026Article
- Lottery before peer review is associated with increased female representation and reduced estimated economic cost in a German funding line.Nature communications · 2025Article
1 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe amount and value of researchers' peer review work is critical for academia and journal publishing. However, this labor is under-recognized, its magnitude is unknown, and alternative ways of organizing peer review labor are rarely considered.
methodsUsing publicly available data, we provide an estimate of researchers' time and the salary-based contribution to the journal peer review system.
resultsWe found that the total time reviewers globally worked on peer reviews was over 100 million hours in 2020, equivalent to over 15 thousand years. The estimated monetary value of the time US-based reviewers spent on reviews was over 1.5 billion USD in 2020. For China-based reviewers, the estimate is over 600 million USD, and for UK-based, close to 400 million USD.
conclusionsBy design, our results are very likely to be under-estimates as they reflect only a portion of the total number of journals worldwide. The numbers highlight the enormous amount of work and time that researchers provide to the publication system, and the importance of considering alternative ways of structuring, and paying for, peer review. We foster this process by discussing some alternative models that aim to boost the benefits of peer review, thus improving its cost-benefit ratio.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.