Supporting reviewers: Understanding and improving their experience

Author: Aman Ganpatsingh

Peer reviewers play a pivotal role in academic publishing and contribute significantly to the credibility and progress of scientific knowledge. To learn about the experience and challenges of reviewers, Springer Nature surveys peer reviewers to understand their satisfaction. Based on the results of the survey and continuous internal explorations, we develop various initiatives and programmes to support reviewers and enhance the review process. Find out more about Springer Nature reviewers’ satisfaction and how we address the challenges they face.

Peer reviewing for an academic journal is a vital aspect of an academic's career. Reviewers get early access to cutting-edge research in their field, which enables them to stay abreast of the latest developments and innovations. By critically evaluating the reviewed manuscripts, reviewers play a key role in shaping the future of research, ensuring that only high-quality, scientifically solid studies are published.

But peer reviewing is a lot of work, and with ever more manuscripts to review, it is not always easy to find reviewers, and academics who perform peer review are under increasing pressure. That's why it is even more important for us to understand the challenges facing reviewers, so we can do our share in responding to them as best we can.

“We know that reviewers face a lot of demand for their time and that reviewer fatigue is a genuine problem. It is therefore vital that Springer Nature continually invest in improving the reviewer experience.” 

Marc Gillett, Director, Editorial Engagement

Springer Nature reviewers’ satisfaction and how general overload impacts their experience  

The peer reviewer survey aims to understand reviewers’ experience and to identify what in their experience can be improved. Ongoing since 2019, the survey results show that the majority of reviewers were satisfied with their experience of reviewing a paper for a Springer Nature journal. In recent years, from 2020 to 2024, satisfaction has been consistent, with 85-86% of reviewers satisfied with their review experience.

A significant majority are also highly likely to review another paper for Springer Nature in the future, demonstrating their positive experience and trust. Time constraints are the primary reason respondents offered for potentially not reviewing again. This is understandable, considering the immense pressure on peer reviewers across the academic publishing sector. The rising demands on researchers’ schedules as they balance research, teaching, and administrative responsibilities, make it challenging to commit to peer review.

The survey also asks respondents to rate their satisfaction with specific aspects of the review process. The highest-rated aspect, reaching 92% in 2024, was the communication with the editorial office. Other aspects that reviewers have been consistently rating highly include clarity of reviewer instructions (91%), ease of using reviewing platform (90%), and completeness of files submitted by author (90%).

To continuously support reviewers and improve their experience as reviewers, Springer Nature takes a holistic approach. This means addressing issues relating to the identification and appropriate matching of reviewers to manuscripts, providing training to support reviewers in submitting high-quality reviews, streamlining the review process to save reviewers time and efforts, and offering recognition for their hard work.

Supporting reviewers and their experience: Enhancing the review process and recognising reviewers’ work

“We know that reviewers face a lot of demand for their time and that reviewer fatigue is a genuine problem,” says Marc Gillett, Director of Editorial Engagement at Springer Nature. “It is therefore vital that Springer Nature continually invest in improving the reviewer experience so that reviewers are only sent relevant manuscripts, and that the process of providing a report is as easy as possible.”

Two main avenues that are specifically important for the overall reviewer experience (and therefore the publication process) are enhancing and optimising the process of finding and matching reviewers to manuscripts, and offering recognition and acknowledgement for reviewers’ work. Here are some of the initiatives from 2024 that we’ve seen success and satisfaction with, and some plans for 2025 that we are working on.

Optimising the process of finding reviewers and matching to manuscript

Finding reviewers is not easy, especially finding the right reviewer whose expertise matches the manuscript, and the pressure on reviewers is growing. Springer Nature invests in initiatives and efforts to support and optimise the process of identifying and matching reviewers to manuscripts, such as refining review targeting and creating Trusted Reviewer pools for easy and reliable access to reviewers. These initiatives aim to relieve pressure from reviewers and enhance their experience altogether.

Refining reviewers targeting for precise manuscript matches:

One of the factors that burden reviewers is the lack of suitability of manuscripts to their expertise. That’s why Springer Nature is working constantly to improve the Reviewer Finder in Snapp, the Springer Nature Article Processing Platform, which streamlines manuscripts through the publication journey.

The Reviewer Finder in Snapp allows editors to identify potential, suitable reviewers for a manuscript. To improve the Reviewer Finder, we work collaboratively across various relevant teams to understand what editors need to find the right reviewers for each manuscript. Improvements are intended to enhance the recommendations provided by the Reviewer Finder, making sure reviewers receive manuscripts that are well-suited to their expertise, in which they can offer the authors valuable and meaningful suggestions to improve the manuscript.

Reviewer Communities:

This new initiative is based on pilot from 2024, in which Reviewer Boards were set up for specific journals. These Reviewer Boards brought together active, engaged, and qualified early career researchers (ECRs), training them in how to review manuscripts and write reports, before naming them as Trusted Reviewers for the journal.

Journal editors could confidently choose a reviewer from among the Trusted Reviewers, knowing that they are placing their manuscript with a reviewer who will deliver a quality report in a timely fashion. With the success of the pilot, we launched expanded Reviewer Communities, featuring thousands of Trusted Reviewers under shared umbrellas of research expertise.

Belonging to the Springer Nature Reviewer Communities comes with significant benefits, tailored for ECRs: They can attend specialised, in-depth peer review training and access masterclasses on career development for researchers, receive sharable certificates, get mentored by experienced editors, enjoy networking opportunities to increase their visibility, and gain recognition for their work. Trusted Reviewers also receive access to Springer Nature’s Research Communities. In the Research Communities, they can explore the latest research findings in specific research areas from across Springer Nature, and generate discussion with peers, get news and opinions, and increase their visibility.

ECRs are the focus of this initiative because they tend to be more proactive and engaged, and because it is an opportunity for Springer Nature to give back to the community of young researchers and offer career development opportunities. ECRs are invited to submit their details through a dedicated form to be considered for the Trusted Reviewer programme.

The editors, responsible for identifying and enlisting reviewers, are overwhelmingly positive about this service: Around 80% of editorial board members reported increased satisfaction in securing reviews from Trusted Reviewers, describing them as more responsive, efficient, quick, reliable, and engaged than general reviewers. Indeed, Trusted Reviewers respond 2-3 times faster to invitations to review, and their average rates of agreement to review are 48% (as opposed to 7-10% for general invitations to review).

Acknowledging and rewarding reviewer efforts: The importance of recognition

Reviewing is a time-consuming process. Reviewers deserve to receive recognition and credit for this important work, not only to engage and motivate them, but also to support their career advancement.

• Reviewer certificates: In 2024, Springer Nature launched the Reviewer Dashboard that keeps a centralised record of reviewer’s invitations to review, their statuses, and priorities. The certificates feature in the Dashboard enables reviewers to easily and immediately download reviewer certificates for each review they performed. Within only a few months of the feature’s launch, over 133,000 certificates have been downloaded by reviewers, with the number growing constantly. This highlights how much reviewers value such formal recognition of their review work.
• Celebrating and acknowledging review contributions in an annual Year in Review email: This festive endof-the-year email was sent in December 2024 to over 400,000 Snapp reviewers, and included their review statistics for the year along with a heartfelt appreciation for their efforts. Recipients were encouraged to share their collected review information in social media using a specific hashtag, #SNreviewers, to proudly display their invaluable contribution to scientific publishing.

Dedicated Reviewer Engagement team

Our efforts to increase the number of active and engaged reviewers support the publication process, but also the satisfaction of reviewers, who receive more targeted and relevant manuscripts and enjoy rewards and recognition for their work.

To complement the various efforts across different teams in support of reviewers, Springer Nature has recently launched a dedicated Reviewer Engagement team. This team complements the already well-established Editor Engagement and Researcher Engagement teams, each offering tailored activities to train, support, and reward academic on their roles within journal publishing.

The dedicated team consolidates Springer Nature’s activities for reviewers, and is intended to foster a sense of community and collaboration. We appreciate our reviewers and their invaluable role in the publication process, and commit to continue working to support our reviewers and elevate them in their work.

Find out more about peer review at Springer Nature, and get resources and training opportunities to support you in your reviews.