peer review

A reviewer at the American National Institutes of Health evaluating a grant proposal Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review methods are used to maintain quality standards, improve performance, and provide credibility. In academia, scholarly peer review is typically used to determine an academic paper's suitability for publication. The reviewers are experts in the topic at hand and they have no connection to the author (they are not told the name of the author). They are anonymous and cannot be pressured. Top journals reject over 90% of submitted papers. Peer review can be categorized by the type and by the field or profession in which the activity occurs, e.g., medical peer review. It can also be used as a teaching tool to help students improve writing assignments.

Henry Oldenburg (1619–1677) was a German-born British philosopher who is seen as the 'father' of modern scientific peer review. It developed over the following centuries with, for example, the journal Nature making it standard practice in 1973. The term "peer review" was first used in the early 1970s. A monument to peer review has been at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow since 2017.