Will Rewarding Peer Reviewers Help Scientific Publishing?

"While the pace of new scientific discoveries might lead you to believe that the industry is moving at a mind-boggling pace, the speed of academic research and publishing is actually surprisingly slow. Apparently, it can take an average of 150 days to get a scientific paper published and much of this problem stems from the peer review process – specifically, the lack of incentives for peers to actually contribute a review. Daniel Johnston and Andrew Preston, founders of scientific publishing platform, Publons, are hoping to change this. First launched in 2013, the New Zealand-based Publons is an online platform for researchers and academics to publish, review and discuss scholarly work. Unlike other platforms, Publons hopes to motivate reviews with the introduction of a peer rewards programme, giving them recognition for their contributions ..."