Managing the Growth of Peer Review at the Royal Society Journals, 1865-1965

Author:

Fyfe Aileen1ORCID,Squazzoni Flaminio2ORCID,Torny Didier3ORCID,Dondio Pierpaolo4

Affiliation:

1. School of History, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom

2. Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan, Milano, Italy

3. CNRS, PSL Research University, CSI—Centre de sociologie de l’innovation, Paris, France

4. School of Computing, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, Ireland

Abstract

This article examines the evolution of peer review and the modern editorial processes of scholarly journals by analyzing a novel data set derived from the Royal Society’s archives and covering 1865-1965, that is, the historical period in which refereeing (not yet known as peer review) became firmly established. Our analysis reveals how the Royal Society’s editorial processes coped with both an increasing reliance on refereeing and a growth in submissions, while maintaining collective responsibility and minimizing research waste. By engaging more of its fellows in editorial activity, the society was able to establish an equilibrium of number of submissions per reviewer that was relatively stable over time. Nevertheless, our analysis shows that the distribution of editorial work was significantly uneven. Our findings reveal interesting parallels with current concerns about the scale and distribution of peer review work and suggest the strategic importance of the management of the editorial process to achieve a creative mix of community commitment and professional responsibility that is essential in contemporary journals.

Funder

UK Arts & Humanities Research Council

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Subject

Human-Computer Interaction,Economics and Econometrics,Sociology and Political Science,Philosophy,Social Sciences (miscellaneous),Anthropology

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