Conducted after every five years, the Peer Review Congress presents data on a variety of issues that are associated with peer review. At the conference, numerous publishing professional deep dive into the quality and credibility of peer review and scientific publication. They look at research being done on these issues and think about the topic through the lens of scientific evidence. Topics covered in the congress are, in part, bias, data sharing, integrity and misconduct, common problems with peer review and scientific publication, the overall quality of scientific literature, funding and grant reviews, innovations in the peer review process, and many more.
I participated in the Eighth Peer Review Congress in Chicago, USA held on Sep 10, 2017 on behalf of Asian Council of Science Editors. The event was indeed a unique meeting during which original research was presented on all aspects of editorial and funding peer review, scientific and scholarly publication, research and reporting practices, reproducibility and access, and information exchange. All the sessions were full of important discussions and arguments by leading industry experts and publishing professionals.
The 2017 Peer Review Congress also featured 2 poster sessions, one each on Days 2 and 3 respectively of the Congress. Each poster presented a brief overview of an original published research paper. The posters were categorized under 14 broad topics and divided across both days. Some of these topics were Authorship and Contributorship; Bias in Peer Review, Reporting and Publication; Conflict of Interest, Integrity and Misconduct, Quality of Reporting, Data Sharing and Editorial and Peer Review Process amongst others.
Along with these new perspectives and learnings, I was also lucky to do some important Meetups for ACSE with its new collaborators at this congress. I met with Alice meadows and Rick Anderson from SSP and discussed about the possible new initiatives in the collaboration between both organizations. To discuss and refresh up the collaboration of ACSE with European Association of Science Editors,I also met with Ana Murasic, President EASE and conversed how both organizations can work together to serve the publishing industry. Last but not the least, discussion with Ana Graucai from ISMPP opened some new avenues of collaboration of both organizations. Other than these corner meetings, I also found the opportunity to converse with some of the industry colleagues, including Donald from Editage, Pippa Smart from ALPSP, Lauren from BMJ and Caroline from Jama Network where conversations were done on how ACSE can support their ongoing work on serving the publishing Industry and on possible manners to get the maximum industry support for ACSE members. Overall, the congress was a remarkable experience of learning and networking for me and council and I hope to represent ACSE at the next peer review congress in 2022.
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