Report Released by American Society of Hematology on the Value of Peer Review
April 29, 2019
The American Society of Hematology has commissioned a report, prepared by Clarke & Esposito, on the “Value of Peer Review.” Working closely with ASH and the independent research firm ReadEx, we developed a survey instrument and invited just over 25,000 individuals to participate. We received responses back from 8%, or 1,944 researchers. Although this research focused on one specific field (hematology), many elements may be generalizable to other medical specialties, as well as to STM publishing more generally.
We found that researchers overwhelmingly hold positive views regarding journal peer review and consider it an essential and helpful aspect of scientific communication. 80% of respondents agreed with the statement “Scientific communication is greatly helped by peer review.” 88% disagreed with the statement “Peer review is unnecessary.” Asked how peer review improves the science of papers, respondents agreed that peer review resulted in “major points [made] more clear” (69%), “data presentation improved” (66%), “overstatement corrected” (64%), and “scientific errors identified” (59%). Only 10% of respondents indicated dissatisfaction with the peer review process used by journals in their field.
ASH has generously agreed to make the survey findings public in the form of this report.
Go to Report