ACSM would like to thank the members who served as peer reviewers this year for our journals. Peer reviewers provide an immense service by offering their time and highly specialized knowledge to prepare detailed evaluations, judge the quality, and provide suggestions for improvement to other researchers’ manuscripts.
Journal peer review is a process of scientific assessment by which manuscripts are evaluated by other scholars who are considered experts within the same or a related field (Severin &.1,2 Peer review is expected to fulfill different functions, including conducting quality control, improving manuscripts, assessing the suitability of manuscripts, informing publication decisions, providing authors with feedback by their peers, curating academic communities and providing a seal of approval for publications.1
According to the 2021 publication “A Billion-Dollar Donation: Estimating Researchers’ Time Spent on Peer Review” by Aczel, Szaszi and Holcombe, the time and the salary-based monetary value of peer review conducted for journals was estimated to be 100 million hours in 2020, with a monetary value of over 1.5 billion U.S. dollars for U.S.-based reviewers. The article reports that on average, a reviewer completes 4.73 reviews per year, with an estimated six hours per review. Severin & Chataway reported 2.7 reviews are completed for every manuscript, with an estimated 13.7 million reviews carried out per year.1 For this contribution in the biomedical domain alone, the time devoted to peer review was estimated to be 63.4 million hours, which has likely increased substantially since first reported.
At ACSM, we are fortunate to have many dedicated members who provide peer review. To highlight our numbers, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise (MSSE) completed 1,958 reviews and utilized 1,900 reviewers this year. Here are the Dec. 1, 2023, through Nov. 30, 2024, numbers for the additional ACSM journals:
- ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal — 75 reviews by 55 reviewers
- Current Sports Medicine Reports — 167 reviews by 116 reviewers
- Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews — 91 reviews by 87 reviewers
- Translational Journal of ACSM — 214 reviews by 125 reviewers
- Exercise, Sport, and Movement — 75 reviews by 46 reviewers
ACSM Total: 2,580 completed reviews by 2,329 reviewers!
The labor that goes into peer review is rarely formally recognized or directly financially compensated in the journal system, as many reviewers perform their reviews as part of their research or scholarly service mission. These are only rough estimates, but they help our understanding of the enormous amount of work and time that our members devote to the publication process.
In response to the article, Andy Jones, PhD, FACSM, past president of ACSM and editor-in-chief of MSSE, states, “The esteem with which MSSE (and indeed all of ACSM’s journals) is held within our community depends to a large extent on the quality of the manuscript review process. I am therefore extremely grateful for the diligence displayed by our reviewers and associate editors when evaluating the scientific contribution and enhancing the presentation of the articles we receive. High standards of peer review in scientific publication are now more important than ever, and I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to MSSE’s success in this regard and hope that they will continue to provide this invaluable service to ACSM and its journals long into the future.”
Again, thanks to all the peer reviewers for your extraordinary service. ACSM would also like to thank the Editorial Services Office staff, the editorial boards of the ACSM journals, and the editors-in-chief for their tireless efforts in working and coordinating with our peer reviewers to ensure we publish high-quality science.
1. Severin A, Chataway J. Overburdening of peer reviewers: A multi-stakeholder perspective on causes and effects. Learned Publishing [Internet]. 2021;34(3). Available from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/leap.1392#leap1392-bib-0031. https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1392.