Can We Volunteer Out of the Peer Review Crisis?

TL;DR

This paper explores a game-theoretic model suggesting that voluntary participation in a peer review lottery could alleviate reviewer scarcity and improve review quality.

Contribution

It introduces a novel voluntary lottery mechanism modeled through game theory to address peer review capacity issues.

Findings

A Nash equilibrium exists where authors voluntarily participate in the lottery.

Participation by caring scientists can improve overall review quality.

The model offers a potential solution to the peer review crisis.

Abstract

The volume of scientific manuscripts is growing faster than the capacity to evaluate them, yet the institutions that govern peer review have remained largely unchanged. The result is a widening mismatch: reviewer scarcity, noisier assessments, and declining confidence in editorial decisions. Every scientist wants better reviews, but review quality depends on the total burden, which no single author can shift. To isolate this tension, we provide a game-theoretic thought experiment: a voluntary lottery in which authors accept a chance of random pre-review rejection, reducing reviewer burden and improving the quality of surviving evaluations. We show that a Nash equilibrium emerges in which authors voluntarily enter the lottery. Scientists who care about the literature they read, not just the papers they publish, will opt in, raising the quality of published science for all.