Skip to main content
New Report Highlights Trends and Challenges in Peer Review

New Report Highlights Trends and Challenges in Peer Review

June 2026

Silverchair has released its 2026 Future of Peer Review Report. Based on survey responses from over 2,000 authors and reviewers from around the world, interviews with peer review experts, a review of current literature, and eight years of data from ScholarOne, Silverchair’s manuscript submission system, the report takes on the question of whether peer review truly is, as is commonly claimed, in crisis.  

Here are some of the insights shared in the report:

  • ScholarOne’s pool of reviewers has grown 54% since 2018. The number of invitations to review has increased over 100%, but acceptance rates have declined from 43% in 2018 to 22% in 2024.
  • On average, potential reviewers receive 4.5 invitations before accepting. The study emphasizes that the considerable amount of time and resources spent on finding and securing reviewers
  • When asked to name pain points in the publishing process, 60% of authors cited multiple logins for submission systems. Nineteen per cent named the length of time for acceptance decisions.
  • The report recommends that publishers modify their approach to reviewer engagement, i.e., by identifying reviewers invested in a particular area of research, journal, or project rather than relying on cold searches to secure reviews. 
  • Reviewers from East and Southeast Asia are more likely to accept a review invitation than those in the US, UK, and Western Europe.
  • Although over 50% of reviewers report using AI in their process, the majority of journals offer no guidance to reviewers on AI use. 

Noting that peer review is clearly under pressure, the report looks at a number of potential solutions, including new models for peer review, compensation for reviewers, and the development of new AI tools for peer review. It also offers a vision of four different futures reflecting how these pressures might pan out in the coming years. Ultimately, however, the report argues that the peer review system remains robust, even in light of the challenges:

Peer review is, by most measures, still working: unevenly, inefficiently, under accumulating strain, but working.

Visit the Silverchair site for the full report.