After you've reviewed

What happens after you've reviewed an article?

Your report, along with those of any other reviewers, will be read by the journal editors who will make a decision on how to proceed. If the reviewer reports agree, the decision will be made to either:

Accept the manuscript without any further changes
Reject the paper
Ask the authors to revise the paper further.

If the reviewer reports do not agree, the journal may consult an adjudicator. An adjudicator is a senior reviewer or Editorial Board member. They are asked to provide an opinion on both the article and reviewer reports. If an Editorial Board member is used, they may be told the names of the reviewers securely and in-line with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), to help them make their decisions. However, the authors will still only see anonymous reports. The adjudicator may agree or disagree with your assessment of the article.

All reviewers of a paper are informed when the editor makes their decision, and you will also be able to see the anonymous reports of any other reviewers at this stage. If the author is asked to make further revisions, you may be asked to review the revisions when they come in (see ‘Reviewing a revised article’).

For information on the benefits of reviewing for IOP Publishing journals, including our 10% reviewer APC discount programme, click here.

Publons

IOP Publishing (IOP) has partnered with Publons, a free service which enables you to track, verify and showcase your peer review contributions. This demonstrates your contribution to scholarly communication beyond authorship. You can seamlessly have your reviewer records updated in Publons with the click of a button. You gain recognition even if the manuscript is never published, and only the name of the journal and the year of the review will be displayed, so anonymity is completely protected. To find out more about Publons and join over 75,000 other experts committed to reviving peer review, see here or tick the Publons box when you next review for an IOP journal.

Track your reviews across different journals and publishers
Your profile updates automatically once you have opted in
Get notified when articles you have reviewed are published
Compare your reviewing behaviour with others
Track citations and altmetric scores of articles you’ve reviewed
Sync your profile with your ORCID ID
Use your Publons record as support for a green card application

What happens if I opt in to Publons when I’m doing a review for one of your journals?

By selecting “Yes” you are opting in to the Publons service and data about this review will be transferred to Publons. By default, the content of the review will not be publicly displayed, and only the year of the review and the journal title will be shown on reviewer profiles. You may edit what is displayed for any review or opt out of the service at any time.

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Article publication charge discount for reviewers

To help recognize the vital contribution our reviewers make to the publishing process, IOP has a reward programme based on open access discounts. When you review an article for an IOP journal, you may claim a 10% discount on the cost of publishing an article in any IOP journal on a gold open access basis. Discounts are valid for two years from the date the review was submitted, and can be applied to a article processing charge (APC) by any co-author.

Outstanding Reviewer Awards

IOP is proud to recognize excellence in reviewing, and each year our journal editorial teams select the best reviewers of the year based on the quality, quantity and timeliness of their reviews.

Each journal chooses one person to receive the Reviewer of the Year Award, and selects a number of other excellent reviewers to receive Outstanding Reviewer awards.

2022 Winners

2021 Winners

2020 Winners

2019 winners

2018 winners

2017 winners

2016 winners

Tell us what you think about being a reviewer

When you submit your report to an IOP journal, you will be invited to complete a short survey about your experience. We are always looking to improve our services and would love to hear from your about how we can continue to support our reviewers. You can also contact the editorial office with any feedback you have about reviewing for us.