2017
Volume 17, Number 4, pp. 145–154
Conspiracy of mediocrity: peer review and the integrity muddle
A. Berezin
Department of Engineering Physics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
On the basis of several case studies this article demonstrates that academic peer review (PR) and, more specifically, anonymous peer review (APR) have an overall stifling and suppressive effect on new and frontier ideas. Furthermore, it often corrupts the ethics and integrity of people involved in it (peer reviewers and funding administrators) with the net result that the research system largely promotes incremental and trivial research with predictable outcomes (“do as we do”) and fosters the formation of “inner grantsmanship clubs” (the “I fund you if you fund me” principle), along with subjugation of research (especially in the biomedical field) to business and commercial interests. In such an environment, truly original and innovative research (which often carries with it a much higher risk factor) is relegated to the fringes and experiences social marginalization.