Read a summary of the meeting here

Over the last 50 years, journal-conducted peer review has become the foundation of how scientific work is evaluated and validated. With an interest in fairness and transparency, mounting concerns about rigor and reproducibility, and opportunities provided by the internet, we feel that the time is ripe to discuss how peer review might be advanced.

Therefore, ASAPbio, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and Wellcome held a meeting on “Transparency, Recognition, and Innovation in Peer Review in the Life Sciences” on February 7-9, 2018 at HHMI headquarters in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Due to limited space at the meeting, in-person participation was by invitation only, but all members of the community could join us via live stream on February 7 and 8. Videos now are archived on YouTube.

This meeting convened thought-leaders from the scientific community, publishers, technology developers, and funding agencies to discuss topics including:

Should journal peer review become a transparent and citable form of scholarly communication?

Should scientists receive credit for peer review and, if so, how might this be achieved?

What are best practices in peer review, how can they be spread? How can we train scientists in scholarly review?

Is it possible to overcome inefficiencies and redundancies in peer review?

Should reviewers be expected to review supporting datasets and code?

Using new tools (e.g. preprints and the internet), are there new models for feedback/evaluation that could augment traditional peer review?

To engender broad and open discussion, the meeting was open (see archives of live video streaming with captioning) with pre-meeting deliberation (e.g. short white papers and commentary) to engage the worldwide scientific community. We look forward to an ongoing conversation that engages diverse stakeholders, perspectives, and opinions.

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