From: Graham Taylor <[log in to unmask]> Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 12:59:46 +0100 As practices of the academic community evolve, so should healthy scrutiny of the workings of peer review. Its effectiveness, fairness, sustainability, and cost-efficiency merit challenge and debate. Our latest survey into opinions of and attitudes to peer review was designed with this in mind. We also wanted to analyse trends in relation to earlier surveys. Read the full survey results and a summary at: publishingresearchconsortium.com Perhaps surprisingly, this survey concludes that satisfaction with and broad support for peer review has remained stable from previous surveys. There is a continuing preference for conventional, pre-publication, single or double blind peer review, and this preference applies to both authors and reviewers, with open peer review ranking significantly behind. But the desire to see improvements in specific areas is increasing, with some variability between subject communities in support for alternative types of review. Although the burden on reviewers remains significant, participation in peer review is seen as an important contribution to the community and reciprocating the work of others. The effectiveness of peer review is ranked highest for improving the quality of published papers, but the belief is growing that peer review should also be able to detect fraud and plagiarism. Graham Taylor Convenor Publishing Research Consortium