WG Recognizing and Rewarding Peer Review
WG Recognizing and Rewarding Peer Review
WG Objectives
Research assessment needs to take into account a broad range of scholarly activities. Formal peer review plays a crucial role in research and must therefore be given appropriate recognition in assessment processes. This working group will develop systematic approaches for recognizing and rewarding peer review activities.
- Efforts will be made at a number of different levels:
- Collecting systematic evidence on ways in which high-quality peer review activities can be
recognized and rewarded; - Using this evidence to develop principles and guidelines for recognizing and rewarding peer
review activities; - Piloting the implementation of these principles and guidelines in research performing and
research funding organisations; - Supporting the wider implementation of these principles and guidelines.
In a two-year time frame, the working group members will work on a number of outputs at the four levels mentioned above.
Latest News
Updated 8 April 2026
Workshop on Turning Recommendations into Reality: Implementing Mechanisms for Recognizing and Rewarding Peer Review
In January 2026, the WG for Recognizing and Rewarding Peer Review held a hybrid workshop in Berlin, co-organised with ALLEA. The event built on the work of the WG, which developed a set of recommendations outlining how peer review can be better acknowledged and credit as a scholarly output across the research ecosystem. To translate recommendations into action, participants took part in collaborative design sprints to develop pilot proposals for testing new recognition mechanisms.
By bringing together diverse stakeholders to explore practical solutions, the workshop marked an important step toward making peer review more visible, valued, and sustainable within evolving research assessment systems.
If your institution/organisation/department would consider piloting any of the recommendations, please register your interest here or contact Maria Ronald (ronald@allea.org).
Affiliated Organisations
- Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development
- cOAlition S
- Leiden University
- Erasmus University Rotterdam
- Loughborough University
- ASAPbio Global
- CNRS France
- DFG Germany
- EMBO Global
- Eötvös Loránd Research Network Hungary
- Erasmus University Rotterdam Netherlands
- Eurodoc Europe
- Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV) Finland
- OPERAS Europe
- SNSF Switzerland
- UKRN UK
- University of Turku Finland
- University of Zadar Croatia
- Vita-Salute San Raffaele University Italy
Activities
CoARA WG on Recognizing and Rewarding Peer Review Calls for Collaboration
In July 2025, the CoARA Working Group on Recognizing and Rewarding Peer Review published a set of recommendations on how the research system and publishers could systematically acknowledge, and appropriately reward, peer review as a legitimate and critical scholarly effort. The recommendations address the diverse stakeholders involved in the academic publishing enterprise, including research-performing organizations (RPOs), research-funding organizations (RFOs), publishers/editors, and individual researchers.
The Working Group is calling on the research community, including CoARA Members, Working Groups, National Chapters, to develop ways to pilot and test the recommendations on how the invisible labour of peer review can be recognized adequately to improve both the quality of research and the wellness of researchers.
Please email Maria Ronald (ronald@allea.org) to express your interest in piloting the recommendations to receive further information.
CoARA Working Group Recognizing and Rewarding Peer Review: Open Consultation on Draft Recommendations
- Academic peer review plays a central role in ensuring fair and justifiable decisions in scholarly publication and funding. Yet, the contributions of peer reviewers are often underappreciated and insufficiently recognized within formal academic structures. To overcome this, the CoARA Working Group Recognizing and Rewarding Peer Review has developed a set of actionable recommendations aimed at integrating peer review activities into research assessment approaches.
- The working group also provides specific recommendations tailored to scholarly manuscripts, books, and funding proposals, each organized by relevant stakeholder groups. Together, these recommendations are intended to be systematic, practical, scalable, and broadly applicable across different disciplines.
- The deadline for feedback for the open consultation was 30 October 2024. We thank members of the CoARA community who contributed to the draft recommendations!
- The working group is also looking for organisations that are interested in piloting any of the specific recommendations – please indicate your interest via the consultation form!
Find out more!
Contact
Tung Tung Chan
Erasmus University Rotterdam