Arun H.S Kumar
University College Dublin Belfield, Dublin 04, IrelandArun H.
DOI: 10.4103/0976-9668.127269

Peer review is the process of evaluating someone’s work by at least one or more respective subject experts, which has several formats and is currently applied in several domains. I will limit my focus to two major areas, namely peer review of scientific publications and grant applications, as these are the two major experiences, which every scientists has during his/her professional life. The primary aim of the peer review is to approve scientific quality and credibility of the work. The process of peer review can only be valid if it is 100% unbiased and this has emerged as a major limitation of the peer-review process. How can we ensure the peer-review process is unbiased, who peer-reviews the peer-reviewer? To get some insight into this let’s look at the history [Figure 1] of scientific publication process. Back in the ancient times much before the journals started, scientific inventors demonstrated their work to respective authorities and received suitable rewards (equivalent to current Grants system), this changed into documentation systems when the technology became available in various formats and over time has considerably evolved into the current system of journal (print, video, and/or online) based publications [Figure 1]. The peer review system was integrated into this as a means to ascertain scientific quality and credibility. However if the peer reviewers are biased, the system of peer review fails, which has been the case with several manuscripts subjected to peer review process and unethically denied publication due to biased peer review process. This biased peer review process is scientifically and ethically wrong. Read more . . .