Is peer review in crisis?

Peer review is an essential component of scholarly publishing. In recent years it has attracted criticism and its role has been challenged. Based upon the findings of focus groups commissioned by Elsevier, this paper examines the role of peer review and discusses if, and how, it could be improved. Review by peers has been a method of evaluation since Greek times 1 and has been a formal part of scientific communication since the first scientific journals appeared over 300 years ago. The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society is widely accredited as being the first journal to formalise the process. 16, pp. 68–69 The referee is now at the heart of scientific publishing and according to Ziman 15, p. 111 is ‘. . . the lynchpin about which the whole business of Science is pivoted’. It is testament to the power of peer review that a scientific hypothesis or statement, presented to the world is largely ignored by the scholarly community unless it is first published in a peerreviewed journal. It is precisely because of this pivotal role as well as some notable incidents of fraud and incompetence that the process has been subjected to a variety of criticisms in recent years. Possibly the most damaging incidence was in September 2002, when Jan Hendrik Schon, tipped