When done properly, peer review can help build trust in science by serving as a ‘quality control’ measure that ensures that research – and especially the research that hits the front page of the newspapers and/or forms the basis of health policy and practice – has been conducted to a high standard. Unfortunately, we’ve also seen how poor-quality research that has ‘slipped through the cracks’ in terms of peer review can have serious and wide-reaching consequences. If we’ve learned anything over the past few years, it’s that rigorously conducted and thoroughly peer-reviewed research is essential in promoting and protecting people’s health. How do you think we can create and support trust in research through the peer review process? The theme of this year’s Peer Review Week is ‘Research Integrity: Creating and Supporting Trust in Research’. Peer reviewers therefore play a critical role in helping appraise the evidence and ensure that it’s acceptable for publication and dissemination. Without peer review, it would be far more difficult (and time-consuming) for clinicians, policymakers, educators, researchers, and members of the public to evaluate research in our field. As peer reviewers, we help in this decision-making process by assessing the quality and implications of research. In the field of child and adolescent mental health, decisions about policy and practice rely on having high-quality evidence readily available.

In fact, peer review is such a fundamental part of the research process that it’s hard to imagine a world without it! Peer review is a fundamental part of scientific publishing whereby individuals with relevant expertise who were not involved in a particular piece of research critically appraise others’ work to ensure that it meets standards for ethical conduct, quality, and rigour.

What is Peer Review, and why is it important? We asked Emma Soneson, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford, about Peer Reviewing.

What is an endnote peer review