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- Single blinding in peer review may be subject to unconscious bias, putting authors from wealthier, English-speaking countries at an advantage.<\/li>\n
- Double blinding can improve equity in peer review and even increase reviewer numbers, thus creating a more time-efficient process.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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<\/p>\nThe shortfalls of the current peer review process have long been debated<\/a>. Now, a real-life experiment conducted by a journal\u2019s own editorial team leads them to call time<\/a> on the traditional single-blind peer review system, in favour of a more equitable double-blind approach.<\/p>\n
How does double-blind review improve equity?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Writing in a post<\/a> on the LSE Impact Blog<\/a>, Professor Charles Fox (Executive Editor of the journal in question, Functional Ecology<\/em><\/a>, at the start of the experiment), explained his team\u2019s conclusions that:<\/p>\n
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Authors from wealthy countries and those with higher levels of English language proficiency receive an advantage under current peer review processes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
In the study<\/a>, around 3,700 papers submitted to the journal over a period of 3 years were randomly assigned to either single-blind (ie, only the reviewer was anonymous) or double-blind (ie, reviewers and authors were anonymous) peer review. The group found that:<\/p>\n
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- single blinding can be subject to positive biases relating to the country of origin of authors<\/li>\n
- authors from wealthier, English-speaking countries received higher scores and were more likely to be invited to proceed to the revisions stage, when their identities were known<\/li>\n
- no biases were identified in relation to gender<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
As a result of the experiment, all peer review at Functional Ecology<\/em> is now double blind.<\/p>\n
What are the challenges with double-blind review?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Prof. Fox acknowledges that concerns exist around potential costs and limitations associated with double blinding, and that there is a generally held assumption that individuals would be less keen to review under such a system. The group, however, found the reverse to be true, with double blinding leading to increased reviewer numbers and a more time efficient process.<\/p>\n
Issues can also arise in maintaining the anonymity of authors, for a number of reasons:<\/p>\n
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- Individuals can be recognisable to their peers because of their specialism, research methods, etc.<\/li>\n
- Manuscripts may have been previously submitted to a preprint server or earlier data published as part of a longer-term trial.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Sixty percent of reviewers in the study stated that they knew, or suspected, the identity of authors despite anonymisation, and in 90% of these cases they were correct.<\/p>\n
What is the best way forward?<\/strong><\/p>\n
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