BUiD’s Professor ranked among the top 1% of peer-reviewers worldwide

Professor Stephen Wilkins, Head of Graduate Programmes in Business Management at The British University in Dubai, is recognised as being among the top 1% of peer-reviewers worldwide. Publons.com, a website that tracks academics’ publications and peer reviews, reveals that Professor Stephen recently completed his 100^th peer review.

Before any academic article is published, the journal editor sends the article to two or three reviewers, who each read the article and write a report for the author/s, which offers suggestions on how they may improve their work. The reviewer also shares with the editor their judgement about the suitability of the article for publication.

The whole academic publishing system depends on knowledgeable experts who volunteer their time to provide article reviews, usually without any form of direct payment. Peer reviewers typically spend between half a day and one day to read an article and then write their report. Sometimes, it is necessary for the reviewer to spend a bit of time reading around on a topic to understand it better, or to undertake calculations to check the accuracy of what has been presented by the authors. The demands of peer reviewing frequently results in journal editors struggling to find volunteer peer reviewers.

Professor Stephen explains, “I appreciate it when other academics provide me with timely and helpful reviews for the articles that I have submitted to journals as an author, so I am happy to review other peoples’ work, as an act of reciprocity. Also, undertaking peer-reviews is one of the best ways of staying up-to-date on a topic, because you are often able to read cutting-edge research before anyone else is able to read it.”