Fast & Fair peer review
A new initiative offering high-quality peer review within 7 working days of submission
Biology Open (BiO) has embarked on an experiment to find out if the time from submission to first decision after peer review can be reduced greatly, whilst maintaining our high standards of quality. Find out more below, or read the recent Editorial by Editor-in-Chief Daniel Gorelick and Managing Editor Alejandra Clark, and the preprint, as posted on bioRxiv.
We are inviting our community to join us in this exciting initiative by submitting their work to BiO and by joining our dedicated pool of reviewers.
Why have we introduced Fast & Fair?
We believe that there should be a home for all high-quality research, regardless of perceived impact. Our mission is to support biologists by providing a publishing experience that is efficient, transparent and fair. Over the years, we've found that publication delays often result from challenges in securing reviewers. Reviewers are busy researchers who volunteer their valuable time to assess each other’s work. We set out to test whether compensating reviewers for their contributions could accelerate the review process, without compromising on quality.
How have we approached this?
We started the Fast & Fair peer review experiment by signing on a select group of reviewers to a contract that transparently outlines the expectations of the project. We set an ambitious timeline, aiming to offer high-quality peer review within 7 working days of submission. This requires commitment, dedication and good communication between reviewers, academic Editors and the in-house editorial team.
The Fast & Fair pilot included a subset of all submissions that were peer reviewed under this workflow. As the first phase of our experiment showed promising results - all 20 manuscripts received a first decision within 7 working days of submission - we have launched phase two of the experiment. In the second phase, we will be expanding our pool of reviewers, so we can process more manuscripts through the Fast & Fair workflow.
How are reviewers being compensated?
We value our reviewers and compensate contracted reviewers under the Fast & Fair workflow by paying them £220 per reviewed manuscript that complies with our quality and timeliness standards.
How are we controlling the quality of peer reviews?
- Reviewers must follow a structured review form that complies with our rubric for publication and our reviewer guidelines, including competing interests and confidentiality.
- Review reports are routinely rated by the Editor and inadequate reviews addressed via feedback for improvement.
- In January 2025 we implemented transparent peer review, where review reports are published alongside the published article. This allows readers to assess for themselves the quality of the reviews.
What are the next steps?
Our aim now is to increase the pool of peer reviewers, so we can offer Fast & Fair peer review to more of our authors. We will keep our community informed of the progress of this initiative through Editorials, on our website and our social media channels. Please consider joining our pool of reviewers, or visit our FAQ page if you have any further questions.
