Peer Reviewers More Likely To Approve Papers If They’re Cited

Peer reviewers are more likely to approve a research paper if it cites their own research, according to a pre-print study.

In response to their findings, the author of the study suggests reviewers declare to editors when they have recommended citations to their own work.

The study is available to view at OSF Pre-Prints.

Quid peer quo

“Coerced citations” are a known issue in academic publishing. One notable 2024 paper – since retracted – acknowledged the practice by boldly writing “As strongly requested by the reviewers, here we cite some references [35–47] although they are completely irrelevant to the present work.”

To help determine how coerced citations impact the peer review process, Adrian Barnett, a professor of meta-research at Queensland University of Technology, assessed the citations of 37,000 from 4 journals (F100Research, Wellcome Open Research, Gates Open Research and Open Research Europe) that use open peer review. All four journals have a peer reviewer code of conduct.

Barnett found that the papers’ reviewers were cited at least once in 13% of the articles and 6% of the reviews included a self-citation. Most reviews recommended “approved” (54%), with only 8% recommending “not approved” – a low proportion compared with many journals. The reviewers themselves were relatively experienced, with a median number of papers of 55.

Reviewers who were cited in the papers were more likely to approve them; the odds ratio for recommending “approved without reservations” versus “approved with reservations” or “not approved” was 1.61.

However, reviewers who requested a self-citation were much less likely to approve the article, with or without reservations.

In a sub-analysis, Barnett looked at 441 reviews where the reviewer was not cited in version 1 of the article and requested a self-citation in their first review. The reviewers who were then cited in version 2 recommended approval 92% of the time, compared to 76% for reviewers who were not cited.

Barnett says his results “show strong evidence that some reviewers have a transactional view of peer review”.

“These reviewers are exploiting the pressure on authors to ‘publish or perish’,” he wrote in his own paper.

To address this kind of exploitation, Barnett suggests that reviewers declare to editors when they have recommended citations to their own work. All such reviews could then be automatically flagged to the editors who could check if the self-citations are justified.

“We are aware of one journal where this is already happening (personal communication, Benno Torgler),” Barnett wrote in his own pre-print. “F1000 have recently introduced checks to prevent reviewers from publishing a review with three or more self-citations. If the reviewers continue to request more than three, then the review is examined, and if the self-citations are deemed inappropriate and the reviewer declines to remove them, then the review is declined.”

Reference: Barnett A. Peer reviewers altered their recommendation based on whether they were cited or wanted to be cited. A matched study of open peer review at four journals. OSF Pre-Prints. Preprint posted online August 5, 2025. Accessed August 22, 2025. doi: 10.31219/osf.io/wdvr9_v1

This article is based on research findings that are yet to be peer-reviewed. Results are therefore regarded as preliminary and should be interpreted as such. Find out about the role of the peer review process in research here. For further information, please contact the cited source.