At the editorial and peer review stages, animal methods bias may result in a lengthy revision period or ultimately rejection if authors fail to comply with requests for animal experiments. To help minimize these undesirable outcomes, the COLAAB has put together the recommendations below for finding and suggesting suitable reviewers during manuscript submission.
Authors are often provided an opportunity to suggest reviewers for their manuscript. Authors should take advantage of the opportunity to suggest reviewers because (1) finding peer reviewers is increasingly difficult for editors, (2) having appropriate reviewers with the expertise and capacity to objectively evaluate a study is beneficial to authors, and (3) avoiding animal-biased reviewers can save time, energy, and resources.
Some authors might fear that an editor will purposefully not use reviewers they suggest; however, this may be unfounded. While there is no guarantee that editors will use the suggested reviewers, there is little evidence demonstrating that editors actively avoid them. If given the opportunity to provide suggested reviewers in the cover letter, authors are encouraged to explain in one or two sentences why they were chosen. Some journals also provide the opportunity to suggest reviewers not to use. This can be a valuable opportunity to let editors know of researchers that may provide negative, biased, or outright hostile reviews.
Recommendations for authors to suggest reviewers during manuscript submission
Adapted from “How to Find Reviewers”
- Try to suggest three to six reviewers to provide to editors when you submit your manuscript.
- The most important characteristic of a suggested reviewer is appropriate expertise. Look for experts in the same field or methodology. A good place to start is to look for authors in your manuscript’s reference list. You may not find researchers who have expertise in every area of your study; it is fine to suggest reviewers with expertise in a part of the study, like the experimental system or the tissue or disease type.
- Look for experts who understand the value of nonanimal methods. You may wish to look specifically for researchers who do not use animals, but it may be more important to look for researchers who have been explicit about the benefits of nonanimal methods and the limitations of animal-based methods. Check the introductions and methods of their recent papers for this sort of evidence.
- Look for demographic, global, and career-stage diversity. Diversity improves the quality and impact of science. The inclusion of diverse peer reviewers is important for addressing structural racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression in biomedical research and academia and may improve the quality of reviews. Early-career reviewers may be more likely to say yes to review, and they may be more likely to provide a high-quality review. An effective way to find early-career reviewers is to look within the lab or among the collaborators of a more prominent, senior researcher.
- Do not suggest reviewers at your institution or who you have worked with in the last two years. This would present a serious conflict of interest.
- Do not contact the reviewers; that is the editor’s job.