Peer review has played a critical role in ensuring the quality and integrity of research since the 1970s. Peer Review Week was established as a global annual scholarly communication event in September 2015. A poll of 2,115 researchers, reviewers, editors, publishers, librarians, and organizations determined this year’s theme, Peer Review Capacity: Volume, Speed, and Quality. Peer Review Week 2026 (PRW 2026) events addressed the challenges posed by increasing submissions, faster decision-making expectations, and reviewer availability remaining limited. The number of published scholarly research articles continues to increase each year (per OpenAlex and Web of Science data), matched by a corresponding increase in retractions. Public mistrust of scholarship and the decline in research integrity is attributable to several factors: increased use of AI; the rise of paper mills, predatory publishers, pirate sites, and hijacked journals; data and image alteration, manipulation, duplication, and reuse; and citation fraud. Peer review is one mechanism for preventing the publishing of flawed science and other mistakes requiring retraction notices from a publisher, although new types of paper mills are disrupting progress by faking peer reviews.
Where to Find PRW 2026 Resources
PRW 2026 events explored how the scholarly ecosystem manages growth without compromising quality, balances speed with rigorous evaluation, supports and recognizes reviewers, integrates technology to support peer reviewers and the peer review process, and recognizes “differences across regions, disciplines, and publishing models.”
Entities began uploading announcements for online and in-person events and activities to Peer Review Week’s site early in 2026. Also available via the homepage are recordings from 2025, blog posts, and other resources concerning PRW 2026’s theme. Publishers, vendors, and scholarly communications organizations scheduled webinars throughout the week, which were made available through the PRW 2026 homepage and sometimes through the organizer’s YouTube channel. Recorded sessions remain available to interested parties. Activities included games such as Tortured Phrases and PREreview’s Review-a-thon.
Highlights From the Week
The following are some events and activities of note from PRW 2026.
Several organizations focused their PRW 2026 activities on the professional development of peer reviewers. For example, ACS Reviewer Lab offered peer review training for scientific researchers, available for free and on demand. IP (Innovative Publication) offered a six-module training.
The Asian Council of Science Editors (ACSE) hosted a panel discussion, The Race for Faster Peer Review: What Are We Optimizing For? Bon View Publishing’s panel focused on Speed vs. Quality in Peer Review: Can Faster Decisions Still Be Trusted? Panel discussions organized by Editage, KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. (KGL), CSE (Council of Science Editors), and ISMTE addressed similar issues related to reviewer fatigue and sustainability. IGI Global Scientific organized a webinar, Can Reviewers Realistically Avoid the Use of AI in Peer Review?
JMIR Publications posted an article applauding peer reviewers in its Peer Review Recognition Program, encouraging other publishers to adopt similar programs. It also created a series of blog posts during PRW 2026 with several discussions of AI and insights for increasing the presence of Black and African American women as peer reviewers. Nova Techset discussed increasing peer review capacity without sacrificing quality. A ReviewerOne blog post covered the related topic of the support needed in a global peer review system. Capacity strain was addressed in a blog post from Pensoft Publishers. Integra had its own post about this in late August.
For individuals not yet participating as peer reviewers, Sage’s webinar series, How to Be a Peer Reviewer, featured publishing editors from around the world who provided “insight and expertise on how to excel as a peer reviewer.” The Boston Congress of Public Health is hosting a webinar on a related topic, Behind the Peer Review: What Editors Actually Look For, on Sept. 28.
