Researchers spent an estimated 130 million hours peer-reviewing papers in 2020
Monetary value of refereeing adds up to $1.5 billion in US alone
In 2020, researchers globally spent an estimated 100 million hours – equivalent to 15,000 years – peer-reviewing manuscripts for scholarly journals, according to a study published earlier this month.
Although academics are usually not paid for conducting peer review, the study, published in Research Integrity and Peer Review, estimates the monetary value of peer review conducted last year in the US alone to be $1.5 billion (£1.1 billion) using the average salary of academics within the country. The cost of the time of referees based in China is more than $600 million and in the UK it is nearly $400 million.