Science Should Serve Everyone: The Collective Benefit of Open Peer Review
Science is often described as a global, collaborative effort to understand the world. In theory, every researcher builds on the work of others, creating a shared body of knowledge that benefits society as a whole.
But if we’re honest, the current peer review system doesn’t always live up to that ideal. Too often, it’s closed, opaque, and concentrated in the hands of a few gatekeepers. The benefits, and the responsibility, are not shared equally.
The Problem with Closed Review
In traditional publishing, peer review happens behind closed doors. Reports are exchanged privately between authors, reviewers, and editors, often hidden from the wider community. While this can protect anonymity, it also:
- Hides valuable feedback that could help others avoid similar mistakes
- Prevents broader discussion about a paper’s strengths and weaknesses
- Allows bias to influence decisions without accountability
The result is a process that’s often invisible, uncredited, and inaccessible to the people who might benefit from it most - students, early-career researchers, and scientists working outside major institutions. It should be mentioned here that some journals are moving away from this, allowing peer reviewer feedback to be readily available!
What Open Peer Review Can Do
When peer review is made open and accessible, the benefits ripple outward:
- Transparency: Everyone can see how a paper has been evaluated, not just whether it was accepted.
- Shared learning: Constructive critiques and methodological discussions become resources for the whole community.
- Recognition: Reviewers can be acknowledged for their contributions, building credibility for their expertise.
- Diverse perspectives: Opening the process invites input from a broader range of researchers, not just those in a journal’s contact list.
Open review turns feedback from a hidden transaction into a public good.
How Paperstars Fits In: Post-publication peer review
Paperstars combines the principles of open peer review with safeguards that protect even our informal reviewers. Reviews are publicly visible but anonymised for the author’s safety, with academic verification to ensure credibility. Every review follows a structured 7-category rubric, making the evaluation clear, balanced, and constructive.
By doing this in a shared, searchable space, we create a living record of how research is being assessed - one that anyone can read, learn from, and contribute to.
Science as a Collective Effort
The ultimate goal is simple: make science better, together. When feedback is open, it stops being a private opinion and becomes a shared tool for improvement. It allows knowledge to circulate more freely, strengthens trust in research, and gives credit where it’s due.
If science is meant to serve everyone, then so should the systems we use to evaluate it.
Start contributing to open peer review today: Join Paperstars and share your first review.