WG Recognizing and Rewarding Peer Review
WG Recognizing and Rewarding Peer Review
WG Objectives
Research assessment needs to take into account a broad range of scholarly activities. Formal peer review plays a crucial role in research and must therefore be given appropriate recognition in assessment processes. This working group will develop systematic approaches for recognizing and rewarding peer review activities.
- Efforts will be made at a number of different levels:
- Collecting systematic evidence on ways in which high-quality peer review activities can be
recognized and rewarded; - Using this evidence to develop principles and guidelines for recognizing and rewarding peer
review activities; - Piloting the implementation of these principles and guidelines in research performing and
research funding organisations; - Supporting the wider implementation of these principles and guidelines.
In a two-year time frame, the working group members will work on a number of outputs at the four levels mentioned above.
Latest News
Updated 30 July 2025:
**Pre-Endorsed Output** Available on Zenodo:
Recognizing and Rewarding Peer Review: A Call for Cultural Change in Academia
Despite the critical position that ‘peer review’ occupies in the pursuit of science, reviewers’ contributions are often invisible and underappreciated. In July 2025, the Working Group published a **pre-endorsed** set of recommendations on how the academic community can, and should, appropriately value this labour that is integral to academic publishing, funding decisions, and research careers.
The report, developed by the Working Group through an extensive consultation process with the broader CoARA community, addresses research-performing and research-funding organizations, as well as publishers and individual researchers, with adaptable recommendations on how to meaningfully recognize and incentivize quality peer review, including such mechanisms as verifiable certificates, providing protected time for peer review, developing digital infrastructures for crediting review activities (e.g. ORCID integration), and including peer review in performance reviews and job evaluations.
The Working Group also invites CoARA members to pilot the recommendations within their institutions. If you are interested in piloting the recommendations on recognizing and rewarding peer review, sign up using this form, and the co-chairs will reach out to you with more information.
Affiliated Organisations
- Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development
- cOAlition S
- Leiden University
- Erasmus University Rotterdam
- Loughborough University
- ASAPbio Global
- CNRS France
- DFG Germany
- EMBO Global
- Eötvös Loránd Research Network Hungary
- Erasmus University Rotterdam Netherlands
- Eurodoc Europe
- Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV) Finland
- OPERAS Europe
- SNSF Switzerland
- UKRN UK
- University of Turku Finland
- University of Zadar Croatia
- Vita-Salute San Raffaele University Italy
Activities
CoARA Working Group Recognizing and Rewarding Peer Review: Open Consultation on Draft Recommendations
- Academic peer review plays a central role in ensuring fair and justifiable decisions in scholarly publication and funding. Yet, the contributions of peer reviewers are often underappreciated and insufficiently recognized within formal academic structures. To overcome this, the CoARA Working Group Recognizing and Rewarding Peer Review has developed a set of actionable recommendations aimed at integrating peer review activities into research assessment approaches.
- The working group also provides specific recommendations tailored to scholarly manuscripts, books, and funding proposals, each organized by relevant stakeholder groups. Together, these recommendations are intended to be systematic, practical, scalable, and broadly applicable across different disciplines.
- The deadline for feedback for the open consultation was 30 October 2024. We thank members of the CoARA community who contributed to the draft recommendations!
- The working group is also looking for organisations that are interested in piloting any of the specific recommendations – please indicate your interest via the consultation form!
Find out more!
Contact
Johan Rooryck
Leiden University