Tenth international congress on peer review and scientific publication

In September 2023, we announced the 10th international congress on peer review and scientific publication, to be held in Chicago, Illinois, on 3-5 September 2025.1 We now officially call for abstract submissions.

The aim of the congress continues to be inspired by the original goal of the inaugural session in 19892,3: to encourage research into the quality and credibility of peer review and scientific publication and to further the evidence base on which scientists can improve the conduct, reporting, and dissemination of scientific research. Nearly everything else has changed around that mission, as we recently described.1 The effects of artificial intelligence (AI) and large language model (LLM) technologies are currently shaping an unpredictable landscape. The rise of mega-journals,4 challenges to reproducibility,5 ever evolving incentives for publication,6,7 old and new types of misconduct,891011 and countless other developments accompany evolving shifts in the scientific environment. These shifts are not well covered by existing scholarly publication practices and policies. Such evolving changes warrant empirical descriptions and investigation into their effects and possible adverse effects on the scientific enterprise.

As with all previous congresses, next year’s event will feature three days of presentations of original research about these and other topics that are vital to the processes, policies, problems, and innovations of peer review, scientific publication, and research dissemination. The congress programme will be largely determined by the abstracts we receive from researchers, representing the current and evolving interests and work of global scientific communities. We encourage new ideas and rigorous evaluations of both old and new processes, and give priority to novel, data driven studies. We also encourage studies that build on previous related research. We are less interested in previously published studies unless there are new insights derived from new unpublished analyses.

The box gives examples of topics of interest, and we will consider any novel research relevant to the funding, conduct, editorial and peer review, reporting, analysis and interpretation, and dissemination of scientific and scholarly information. We have a continued special interest in studies of bias of all sorts and how biases can be identified and managed, ranging from methodological and analytical biases in reports of research to concerns about diversity, inclusion, and representativeness of research participants, authors, peer reviewers, and editors. We are also interested in studies that evaluate if and how AI and LLM technologies have altered the landscape of science and publishing since their public upsurge just after the last congress in 2022.12,13 The world was emerging from the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic then, and we proposed that the contentious and challenging interface between science, society, and policy created an opportune time to test, challenge, and improve the standards of peer review and scientific publication.14 The promise and perils of science and the broader society that supports it seem no less volatile now, if for different reasons, and we again hope that the evolution of technologies and opportunities will lead to novel research that can be presented and discussed during the 10th congress and that the gatekeepers and systems of scientific production and dissemination will be even more receptive to informed change.

We will consider a broad range of study designs but give preference to well developed studies with more generalisable results (eg, prospective, multiyear trials and controlled studies from collaborative researchers, journals, publishers, funders, and information disseminators). Retrospective studies, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, bibliometric and other data analyses, surveys, modelling studies, and other types of studies will also be considered. Abstracts describing non-systematic narrative reviews, recommendations, or opinions will not be considered.

We particularly encourage interdisciplinary research and work that aims to provide valuable insights across diverse scientific fields, including (but not limited to) biomedicine, health and life sciences, psychology, applied sciences, basic sciences, physical and chemical sciences, mathematics, computer sciences, engineering, economics, and social sciences. Work in new and emerging disciplines on technologies and interventions related to publication systems and peer review are also welcome.

Presenters and attendees typically include editors and publishers of scientific peer reviewed journals, researchers, funders, bibliometric and informatics experts, information innovators, librarians, journalists, policy makers, ethicists, scientific information producers and disseminators, and anyone interested in the progress of the scientific information enterprise and the quality of scientific evidence across all scientific and scholarly disciplines. Everyone is invited to submit research for consideration and to attend.

The abstract submission site will open on 1 December 2024, and the deadline for submission is 31 January 2025. Instructions for preparing and submitting abstracts and programmes and abstracts of research presented at the previous congresses9 are available on the peer review congress website.15 Additional information and future announcements will be available on the website, via email alerts that can be signed up for on the site, and the Peer Review Congress social media posts.

The peer review congress is organised by us with support from JAMA and the JAMA Network, The BMJ, and the Meta Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS) and is supported by associate directors and an advisory board of leaders in research and publication who represent a wide variety of scientific disciplines.16

We are excited to receive abstracts for consideration for the 10th international congress on peer review and scientific publication.