Telling the World about Your Reviewing Efforts

Putting efforts into high-quality reviews for academic journals has been a task of idealists so far. Unfortunately, these efforts are mostly invisible for appointment committees. That is a pity for two reasons: First, if researchers frequently receive review requests from good journals this indicates that they are respected by their research community. Second, if researchers accept such requests they demonstrate a willingness to develop and serve the research community. However, a relatively new tool, Publons, has the potential to make a change. Publons provides “a platform that allows researchers to track, verify and be recognised for their peer review and editorial work”. The good thing: “A researcher’s peer review and editorial contributions can be displayed on their public Publons profile to show the world the impact they have on their research field and enhance their career.” Publons often even tracks the length of submitted review documents and can even be used to create a verified review report, which can be included in job and funding applications.