Discussions around improving peer review often focus on openness as a mechanism to reduce bias. Drawing on a recent study of double and single anonymisation at the British Ecological Society, Charles Fox argues for the benefits of double anonymisation as a means to reduce bias and especially institutional status bias in peer review.
There is a widespread perception among scholars that systemic biases influence the outcomes of peer review of scholarly manuscripts. In particular, there is concern and evidence that the gender, nationality, location or reputation of authors influences how manuscripts are assessed by reviewers due to unconscious, or conscious, biases. To reduce these biases and make peer review fairer, some journals have adopted double-anonymous peer review, peer review in which the reviewers and authors are both anonymous. However, single-anonymous review, in which reviewers are anonymous but authors are not, remains the most common type of review in most disciplines.
In September 2019, was began a randomized controlled experiment to examine how anonymising author identities influences the peer review process at the journal Functional Ecology.
Survey data show that scholars widely believe that evaluation of research is biased by characteristics of the authors, and that authors commonly prefer double-anonymous review as the best model for reducing these biases. Given evidence that anonymising author identities makes peer review more fair, it prudent for journals to consider anonymising authors during peer review.
