We 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.
Aczel, B., Szaszi, B., & Holcombe, A. O. (2021). A billion-dollar donation: Estimating the cost of researchers’ time spent on peer review. Research Integrity and Peer Review, 6(1), 14. https://doi.org/10/gngxdx
Caveat: I haven’t read this article yet but wanted to add some thoughts while it’s on my mind.
I have no problem with publishers making a profit, or with peer reviewers doing their work for free. The problem I have is when there is such an enormous gap between those two positions.
If publishers make billions in profit (and they do), while at the same time reviewers are doing a billion dollars worth of work for free, that seems like a broken system.
I think there are parallels with how users contribute value to social media companies. In both cases, users/reviewers are getting some value in return, but most of the value being captured goes to the publisher/tech companies.
I’d like to see a system where more of the value accrues to the reviewers. This could be in the form of direct payment, although this is probably less preferable because, among other things, of the challenges of trying to convert the value of different kinds of peer review into a dollar amount.
Another problem with simply paying reviewers is that it retains the status quo; we keep the same system with all of it’s faults and merely redistribute profits. This is an OK option as it at least sees some of the value that normally accrues to publishers moving to reviewers.
I also don’t believe that open access – in it’s current form – is a good option either. There are still enormous costs associated with publishing; the only difference is that those costs are now covered by institutions instead of the reader. The publisher still makes a heart-stopping profit.
A more elegant solution, although a more challenging one, would be for academics to simply step away from publishers altogether and start their own journals, on their own terms.