Peer review
Written evidence submitted by Thales UK (PR 83)
1) This contribution is a response from the Defence and Mission Systems Domain of Thales UK to the call by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee for evidence on the operation and effectiveness of the Peer Review Process.
2) Thales is a leading defence contractor and a major player in civil and commercial markets around the world. Its businesses are organised by market segment – Aerospace & Space, Defence and Security – and operate as a single organisation, sharing advanced technologies and drawing on complementary capabilities to meet the specific requirements of each customer. Thales employs about 9000 people in the United Kingdom.
3) As a major player in a high technology engineering, Thales’ research and development activities are highly reliant on the ability to access peer-reviewed papers in journals and conference proceedings. If we were not able to rely on the peer-review process to assure the quality and relevance of these papers, we would have to waste time sifting out poor research for ourselves.
4) Employees of the company, particularly in the Technical Directorate, also publish papers in peer-reviewed publications, review papers for conferences and journals, and, from time to time, organise the peer-review of potential contributions to conferences and to ‘special issues’ of technical journals.
5) In our experience the peer review process works well and no substantial changes are required.
6) In respect of some of the questions which the Committee is likely to examine:
1. We believe that peer review is a good quality control mechanism and works well for authors, readers and publishers.
3. Peer review is a good method of advancing and testing scientific knowledge.
5. In electronic engineering, publishing is a world-wide activity. Most publications are in English, and reviewers are drawn from the world-wide community, not particularly from the nation where the journal is published. This means that the peer review process works much the same in all countries where significant papers are published, so the process is substantially uniform between them.
6. Suitable reviewers generally seem to be identified by personal contact or by ‘word of mouth’ recommendation from other workers in the field.
7) As regards issue (2), how peer review might be strengthened, the most serious problem is not so much a weakness with the system as it as now, but rather a threat to its future operation: that is, the pressure on reviewers’ time combined with the increase in the number of journals and, particularly, of conferences, which wish their papers to be peer reviewed, and hence to an increasing need for people to review them.
8) The excessive emphasis on counting numbers of peer-reviewed publications, as a measure of the value of academic research, is a factor driving the increasing demand for more conferences and journals in which such papers can be published.
9) In respect of the pressure on reviewers’ time, it should be remembered that peer review is generally a pro bono activity, which people undertake because they recognise the value of the system.
10) There is a growing problem caused by the increase in papers submitted to English-language publications by authors who are not native English speakers. The process of ‘streamlining’ publication means that journals, and, of course, conferences, often accept the authors’ English without sub-editing. Whilst it would be easy for reviewers to suggest many simple improvements to the language, the electronic systems for submitting reviews are not framed to accept such suggestions, but only to take very broad statements about the quality of the English.
11) The converse problem, where English is not the first language of the reviewers, and their comments are hard to understand, has also been noticed, but this is fortunately not yet a significant issue.
11) As regards issue (7), the impact of IT on peer review, in our experience reviews of electronic engineering papers are now always submitted on line. It should be noted, however, that this is done for the benefit of the people organising the reviews, and not for the benefit of the reviewers. Any tendency to use the capabilities of the ‘on line’ system make the review process more complex is likely to ‘put off’ potential reviewers who are already very busy, exacerbating the potential problems of finding enough of them.
12) As regards issue (8), possible alternatives to peer review, it is hard to see how any system could be better than obtaining a consensus of those ‘skilled in the art.’ Whilst there may, in theory, be problems when all the reviewers are biased against a paper, but this has not been seen to be problem in practice. The process which is sometimes advocated of ‘blinding’ the authors’ names and affiliations on review copies of papers also seems unnecessary in our experience.
13) If the problem of obtaining enough reviewers becomes serious, a possible solution would be to pay reviewers. It is best, however, if reviewing can remain a pro bono activity. Payment would be likely to bias the selection of reviewers away from experienced experts, and towards the less experienced who need the money.
Author: A. G. Stove
Thales UK
10 March 2011
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