Peer review: What to expect

Author: Laura Bea

Laura Bea

Bio:

Laura is a second year PhD student with the University of Southampton. Their PhD is exploring the role of fiction as evidence within UK public policy processes.

Laura is also currently the Network Manager (part time) for the Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN), Co-Chair and co-creator of the Arts and Humanities Sub-Committee, and co-chair of the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Sub Committee (UPEN). They are a former Specialist Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Policy Officer for Public Policy, Southampton.

Introduction

Over the past year, I have been experiencing the peer review process with a prestigious academic journal for the first time. I’d had some experience being a peer reviewer for research project funding beforehand, and this proved extremely helpful in hindsight, aiding with my understanding of the peer review process, and navigating the different complexities and politics that is academic publishing. However, there were some parts of the process that I found challenging, and some lessons I have learned for the next time.

About the research

For my Masters in Social Research Methods, my dissertation explored the ways in which university-based knowledge brokers employ Equity, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategies within academic-policy engagement. Academic policy engagement is a space within evidence-informed policy practice and discourse that looks at strengthening the relationship between researchers, their research, and public policy making within government, parliament, local and regional authorities, and international governing bodies and legislatures, with the aim of being ‘evidence-led’. Within this, however, are EDI considerations that are often overlooked, such as whose evidence tends to be platformed and used, what evidence is valued, and how accessible mechanisms are for ensuring a diverse range of people and knowledges are supporting policy and decision making. Informed by the Universities Policy Engagement Network ‘Surfacing EDI’ Report, which was the first to explore EDI within knowledge brokerage and universities specifically, this study aimed to surface lived experience of knowledge brokers and outline the strategies they use to employ EDI in policy engagement activities. Alongside this dissertation, I conducted a parallel study with Dr Alejandra Recio-Saucedo in the Faculty of Medicine, to explore these same aims but with marginalised academics. The paper published in Evidence and Policy is the result of these two studies.

Mainly, we found a desire from knowledge brokers and marginalised academics for EDI to go beyond surface level visible diversity measures and understandings, and toward a practice that centres epistemic justice, value-driven approaches and plurality within conceptual understandings of what EDI means and does in practice. We conclude that ‘EDI cannot be standardised across higher education contexts, and emphasise the need for holistic, relational and plural approaches to EDI across academic–policy engagement systems through a value-led, equitable and ethical lens’ (Bea & Recio-Saucedo, 2024; Abstract). (P.S, how cool is it to write your own citation?!).

Read the article on Evidence and Policy following this link, or on PURE.

The process

Deciding the journal:

Myself and my colleague were already quite sure on the journal we wanted to go for, so we were lucky that we did not need to spend too much time figuring out the best home given it had quite a ‘natural’ fit. However, for some, this is a big part of the initial process and can be quite difficult to decide on, since you cannot submit to multiple journals at once. This decision carries the risk that even if you go through all the way to peer review for one journal, and it is still rejected, you’d have to start the entire process again with another one. This fear was still definitely present for me, especially as we went through three rounds of major revisions, I was getting more and more nervous that the investment of time and energy would be wasted. Personally, I felt comfortable in the choice of the journal as I was focused on who I wanted to read the paper and what I wanted them to take away from it. The journal we chose catered to both academic and practice colleagues, and it was a comfortable home for other colleagues who’d done great research in the same area who had already published as well.

Preparing the manuscript:

After deciding on the journal, we spent a lot of time getting the manuscript into the best shape it could be. This is where it was probably quite emotionally draining, especially if you can be a bit of a perfectionist. Imposter syndrome and perfectionism tends to mean that no matter the final product, you’re probably still not 100% happy with it, and it takes a lot of mental energy to make yourself be comfortable with what you end up with and are putting out. Even published, I still find things I want to change and wish I had spotted earlier.

I had to do this many times over and over, with each time the paper being reviewed and improved, making me feel sillier and sillier the last time that I thought it was the best standard I could do this time. The optimist and growth centered self in me would say this is the learning curve, and if you’re ever truly, 100% happy with anything, that means you’re not leaving enough room for growth and improvement. The imposter within me however kept telling me that I was delusional for ever thinking each submission was good enough regardless! Both of these selves battled against each other, but thankfully I had a positive network around me of my supervisory team, colleagues and peers who had also experienced these processes, and provided reassurance that I needed. I was grateful in that they weren’t giving me blanket reassurance that I’m the best, I’m amazing, I’m all this and all that. Rather, they were giving me genuine feedback that it is a good paper, this is a good study, I am a good writer, but also, this is what could be improved, and regardless, all of these definitions of ‘good’ will differ by journal, study, university etc, and to not get too boxed into specific meanings of what success looks like. This helped ground me and made me rethink what it would mean to feel proud of myself. Was I focused too much on the external validation of the journal, and the internal validation of being published? Rather, I should focus on whether I am proud of what I’ve written, whether I can stand by my argument, methods and reasonings in a strong way, and how my values align with the knowledge and research I have produced.

Peer review:

The first time I had a revise and resubmit, I was straight onto google asking what it means and if it means my paper is awful. My supervisory team were reassuring and kind, and random strangers on the internet echoed sentiments that whilst the peer review process is scary, it’s rarely the case you’re getting feedback intended to dismiss or weaken the paper, but rather, strengthen it so both you and the journal can publish a high-quality piece of work. However, there were times when I did get slightly frustrated with feedback, as all of us will and do. I had to work on my diplomatic voice, as my natural response deferred to defensive. My colleague Alejandra was great at being that filter for me, and helping me see that no one else will know the paper, the study and the research as intimately and detailed as us, and it’s our job to make sure this is as clear as possible to those we want to communicate it to. Naturally, there will be things people misunderstand or miss, because they’re human, and not least to mention, because peer reviewers are doing this completely in their free time.

My advice for getting through this process is to engage as constructively as possible and practice emotional regulation and intelligence. The peer reviewers I had for my paper were incredibly lovely, and they always wrote messages at the end of their comments noting the importance, value and interest of the paper, and that their comments are intended to strengthen it so it can have the maximum impact. This was really appreciated and empathetic, and if they are reading this blog, thank you for making my first experience one filled with kindness. Engaging constructively does also mean knowing where to challenge or disagree with comments. More often than not, responding to every bit of feedback provided is near impossible due to wordcount, scope of the project, time, or different comfortability and skillset of the reviewer and yourself as the researcher. I was careful with choosing which comments should be challenged, but I made clear and strong justifications for refuting them rather than just disagreeing because I didn’t like them. The peer reviewers noted they valued the way we responded to their feedback, as well.

The difficult bits

Coming from a practice background, I’d say the thing I struggled with the most was the time it took from completion of study to paper acceptance. In my case, it was roughly a year of going back and forth. Being at the point of publication, it’s now very easy to say it was so worth it and that it’s all now very exciting. However, there were many points I was frustrated with feeling a loss of momentum, wanting to disseminate findings but needing to wait otherwise I’d be shooting myself in the foot later down the line, and wanting to engage the research with the wider community as soon as possible. I was often worried that my research would fade out of existence before it even had a chance to share the stage. I don’t have a reflection on this just yet, except to say that the universe did help me out a little bit, and the timeline ended up working in our favour. However, the worry is still valid, and this is a concern shared across the sector, with journals making great strides to decrease the time from submission to publication significantly.

Open Access

I’m not going to pretend that I now understand 100% the open access side of things. It was confusing, and the strictness around it does make you worry if you’re accidentally committing a crime; however, we were greatly supported by the University Library team, who guided us through what statements to write and boxes to tick. The only thing I’d highlight is that you cannot upload your full, published version of your paper to PURE (or whatever your University uses as a repository), only the author accepted version. This means that at times, you may be sharing two different versions, and one may have more mistakes than the other that was corrected at proofing stage. Keep this in mind!

Next steps:

It is important for me (and others in academia) to remember that publication does not automatically equal impact. The research may very well not be seen by anybody, it may be seen by lots of people, and it may be useless to them! Impact means a lot of things, but for me, impact begins with getting the research out into the world and seeing what kind of positive difference it can make. Does our paper make people feel heard, and seen? Does it inform someone’s thinking in their own practice? Does it give someone the confidence to approach EDI differently, or for the first time? In line with participatory action research, I am planning a series of dissemination and workshop-style events with the sector relevant to the research to keep the research alive and the conversation moving. This paper does not claim to provide answers or solutions, but instead seeks to surface questions and conversations.

I want to finish by reiterating a question I asked myself earlier in the blog for those who might be feeling that imposter syndrome at the moment: Are you focused too much on the external validation of the journal, and the internal validation of being published? Rather, could you focus on whether you are proud of what you have written, whether you can stand by your argument, methods and reasonings in a strong way, and how your values align with the knowledge and research you have produced? Hopefully this blog helps demystify some of the peer review process, and validate that it’s okay to have a mix of emotions and responses.

Acknowledgements:

Thank you to Alejandra Recio-Saucedo for being a brilliant, kind and informative colleague and research partner during this process, and for being patient while I learned a lot of new things! Thank you as well to Public Policy Southampton, for funding part of this research (outside of the masters) and for their brilliant support. And thank you to the SCDTP, for enabling this research to even happen.

Reference:

Bea, L., and Recio-Saucedo, A. (2024). EDI in academic–policy engagement: lived experience of university based knowledge brokers and marginalised academics. Evidence & Policy (published online ahead of print 2024), available from: < https://doi.org/10.1332/17442648Y2024D000000030>