Course Description
During a PhD, you will attempt to publish your work in scientific journals. What can you expect from the scientific criticism that you receive in peer review? How should you deal with comments, suggestions and requests from editors and reviewers? What do journals expect from peer reviewers, and how can you write a good review?
The session explores how peer review works in practice, detailing the roles of authors, editors, and reviewers throughout the review process—from manuscript submission to revision and resubmission. It highlights the gap between ideal research integrity standards and real-world practices by analyzing flaws in published papers and discussing why peer review doesn’t always guarantee research quality. Participants will evaluate these shortcomings and brainstorm ways to improve the system as well as how it can be made more effective and fair. Several potential interventions will be discussed, including structured reporting guidelines, automated and open peer review, financial or other incentives for reviewers, and a more distributed approach to reviewer responsibilities.
Learning objectives
At the end of this session, you will have 1) improved your knowledge and understanding of how peer review works in practice as a form of quality control in science; 2) you will be able to identify poor and best practices in peer review; 3) you will have formed an opinion on how peer review can be improved.
Beyond the current session, the insights in peer review help you become a good reviewer, and recognize good research practices. By reviewing manuscripts, you will learn what the current scholarship is about, and how ongoing research is done. As a reviewer you will not only help uphold standards for good research in your field, but also learn where the current frontier of knowledge is.
Prerequisites
This session is open to all PhD candidates in the social and behavioral sciences, broadly conceived, including psychology, neuroscience, data science, computational social science, sociology, political science, public administration, organization science, social geography, epidemiology, human health and life sciences, business administration, marketing, management, economics, environmental science, and sports and movement science. Candidates at all stages of the PhD are welcome to participate if you seek to uncover regularities or test hypotheses using empirical data on human cognition and behavior. You do not have to have published or submitted a paper for publication. No knowledge of statistics or programming is required.
Reading Materials
Before the session, you need to study the following readings materials and complete the assignment (which will be sent with the confirmation email).
- Aczel, B., Barwich, A. S., Diekman, A. B., Fishbach, A., Goldstone, R. L., Gomez, P., … & Ioannidis, J. P. (2025). The present and future of peer review: Ideas, interventions, and evidence. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(5), e2401232121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2401232121
- Bekkers, R. (2020). How to Review a Paper. May 2, 2020. https://osf.io/7ug4w
Optional reading
- Schulz, R., Barnett, A., Bernard, R., Brown, N. J., Byrne, J. A., Eckmann, P., … & Weissgerber, T. L. (2022). Is the future of peer review automated? BMC Research Notes, 15(1), 203. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-022-06080-6
- Malički, M. (2024). Structure peer review to make it more robust. Nature, 628(8008), 476. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01101-9
- Thelwall, M. (2023). Journal and disciplinary variations in academic open peer review anonymity, outcomes, and length. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 55(2), 299-312. https://doi.org/10.1177/09610006221079345
- Gasparyan, A. Y., Gerasimov, A. N., Voronov, A. A., & Kitas, G. D. (2015). Rewarding peer reviewers: maintaining the integrity of science communication. Journal of Korean Medical Science, 30(4), 360-364. https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2015.30.4.360
- Marcoci, A., Vercammen, A., Bush, M., Hamilton, D. G., Hanea, A., Hemming, V., … & Fidler, F. (2022). Reimagining peer review as an expert elicitation process. BMC Research Notes, 15(1), 127. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-022-06016-0
Capacity
This course has a maximum capacity of 35 participants.
Time and Location
This workshop will be held on-site only at Eindhoven University of Technologyon June 6, 2025. Details will be provided to all attendees over email after registration for the workshop.
Workshops start from 9:30 to 16:30 with a lunch break from 12:30 to 13:30. Lunch will not be provided but can be purchased at the university canteen or the on-campus supermarket.
Registration
To register for this workshop, please complete the following form by May 12th. Note that your registration will be considered finalized only after receiving a confirmation email. The registration link will remain open after this date if spots are still available.
Instructor
Prof. Dr. René Bekkers
René Bekkers is director of the Centre for Philanthropic Studies and professor of Philanthropy at the Department of Sociology of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His current research combines surveys, experiments and administrative data to study causes, correlates, and consequences of prosocial behavior and research integrity.