A Consensus Framework for Manuscript Peer Review: Definition, Boundaries, and Core Pillars

Peer review involves people with relevant knowledge assessing scholarly papers and providing feedback. Although it is widely used, there are different views about what peer review includes, who should conduct it, and what it should achieve. A shared understanding can help people describe, teach, study, and improve the process. This paper explains a framework for manuscript peer review developed through an earlier review of the literature and an international consensus study. The framework describes peer review as a structured process in which human reviewers assess scholarly papers to help improve the quality and trustworthiness of published research. It recognizes reviewing as a way of contributing to the research community. The framework explains who a reviewer can be, what reviewers may assess, and the purposes of their feedback. Assessment may extend beyond the paper itself to supporting materials, such as study plans, data, and computer code. It also distinguishes reviewers’ assessments from editors’ decisions about publication. Eight guiding principles describe how peer review should be conducted. It should be fair and honest, constructive, timely, transparent, respectful, thorough and well-reasoned, appropriately confidential, and open to diverse perspectives. How these principles apply will depend on the setting, including whether review takes place before or after publication. The framework describes what peer review should aim to achieve, rather than how it always works in practice. It does not prescribe one review model or require every reviewer to assess every aspect of a paper. Instead, it provides a shared starting point for reviewer training, publishing policies, and research to evaluate and improve peer review.