Nature double blind peer review trial

2015-2017 trial in 25 Nature-branded journals

In a nutshell

"The proportion of authors that choose double-blind review is higher when they submit to more prestigious journals, they are affiliated with less prestigious institutions, or they are from specific countries; the double-blind option is also linked to less successful editorial outcomes."

Goals and intentions

"Double-blind peer review has been proposed as a possible solution to avoid implicit referee bias in academic publishing. The aims of this study are to analyse the demographics of corresponding authors choosing double-blind peer review and to identify differences in the editorial outcome of manuscripts depending on their review model."

Review process

Review requested by

Authors
Reviewer selected by

Editor, service, or community
Public interaction

Not included
Opportunity for author response

Not included
Recommendation

Binary decision

Review policy

Review coverage

Complete paper
Reviewer identity known to

Editor or service
Competing interests

Checked

Video

Transparency

Results

Number of scholarly outputs commented on

10,000+
Metrics

Authors's preference for single- or double-blind review by journal, gender, country, and institution. Editorial decision outcomes
Results summary

"Author uptake for double-blind submissions was 12% (12,631 out of 106,373). We found a small but significant association between journal tier and review type (p value < 0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.054, df = 2). We had gender information for 50,533 corresponding authors and found no statistically significant difference in the distribution of peer review model between males and females (p value = 0.6179). We had 58,920 records with normalised institutions and a THE rank, and we found that corresponding authors from the less prestigious institutions are more likely to choose double-blind review (p value < 0.001, df = 2, Cramer’s V = 0.106). In the ten countries with the highest number of submissions, we found a large significant association between country and review type (p value < 0.001, df = 10, Cramer’s V = 0.189). The outcome both at first decision and post review is significantly more negative (i.e. a higher likelihood for rejection) for double-blind than single-blind papers (p value < 0.001, df = 1, Cramer’s V = 0.112 for first decision; p value < 0.001; df = 1, Cramer’s V = 0.082 for post-review decision)."
Results URL

https://researchintegrityjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41073-018-0049-z

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