Will Anyone Review This Paper? How Incentives Are Imperiling Peer Review — Professor Carl Bergstrom

Carl Bergstrom is a Professor of Biology at the University of Washington. Trained in mathematical evolutionary biology, he studies how information flows across biology, science, and society — from communication and genomic information to the influence of scientific institutions and large-scale networks. Recently, his work has focused on social media, AI, and the spread of disinformation. Scholarly publishing relies on peer review to identify the best science. Yet finding willing & qualified reviewers to evaluate manuscripts has become an increasingly challenging task, possibly even threatening the long-term viability of peer review as an institution. What can or should be done to salvage it? Here, we develop mathematical models to reveal the intricate interactions among incentives faced by authors, reviewers, & readers in their endeavors to identify the best science. In this talk, Professor Carl Bergstrom, University of Seattle, will discuss this analysis done in collaboration with Kevin Gross, North Caroline State University. He will illustrate how this cycle is further propelled by forces including the increasing emphasis on high-impact publications, the proliferation of journals, & competition among these journals for peer reviews, & suggest interventions that could slow or even reverse this cycle of peer-review meltdown.