MERIT Review: Revolutionizing academic peer review and publishing with fairness

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Academic research is the backbone of discoveries and innovation in many fields of study. However, the journey from research to publication can be difficult, with delays, inconsistencies, and a lack of clear standards that can leave even the most groundbreaking studies languishing. Peer reviews, considered the gold standard for preparation before publication in academic journals, can lack rigor, fairness, and most importantly, accountability. The end result is an often opaque process which can stall the publication of critical knowledge and delay the progress of scientific discovery. Concerned by these deep-rooted issues, Dr. Joseph Arboleda-Velasquez, M.D., Ph.D. is launching MERIT Review — an initiative designed to bring much-needed standards, fairness, and efficiency to the peer review and publication process. 

This is not the first initiative from Dr. Arboleda-Velasquez to improve academic publishing, last year, he co-founded ScienceBank, a platform that accelerates the process of academic peer review and publishing by promoting decentralized editorial process, fair compensation of peer reviewers and multilingual publications. 

Dr. Arboleda-Velasquez is a well-known published researcher himself. His research findings on protective genes against Alzheimer’s disease have been published in prestigious academic journals including Nature Medicine and The New England Journal Of Medicine and profiled on the front page of the New York Times and the Washington Post and hundreds of news outlets worldwide. Despite his own accomplishments, Dr. Arboleda-Velasquez recognized that the peer review and publishing process is inherently unfair and replete with bias. 

He experienced himself as an aspiring medical student in Colombia, South America,  and again while at Harvard as a Ph.D. student working on rare diseases, a field of research where it is almost impossible to publish in high profile journals. 

Through MERIT Review, Dr. Arboleda-Velasquez aims to transform the peer review and publication process and make sure that quality research is recognized and published with a standardized methodology. 

“Too often academic publishing can be a Boy’s Club. Minorities, women, and researchers from less prestigious universities or those working on obscure but critical problems can find it harder to get published, regardless of the quality of their work,” states Dr. Arboleda-Velasquez. “The Merit Method will level the playing field so that anyone can get their high quality research paper peer reviewed to an established set of standards.”

MERIT Review (which stands for Manuscript Evaluation Reflecting Intrinsic Tenets) is not just another tool to help get academic research published; it’s a game-changing methodology designed to address the longstanding issues in peer review and publication. The original article introducing MERIT was recently published and can be found here. 

“Academic publishing is a $30 billion industry,” says Dr. Arboleda-Velasquez, an associate scientist at Mass Eye and Ear, a Mass General Brigham Affiliated Hospital, and an associate professor in the department of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. 

“It influences funding decisions and career trajectories for researchers, yet it lacks standardized processes and quality benchmarks. MERIT Review fills this gap by offering a unique model for peer review that prioritizes quality, fairness, and efficiency.” 

Driven by a passion for improving academic research, Dr. Arboleda-Velasquez decided to propose a more equitable and efficient peer review process. This led to several key events, including the co-founding of ScienceBank, a platform dedicated to innovative publishing, and the development of advanced algorithms to enhance the distribution of digital content all conceived from his research laboratory. 

“MERIT Review is a natural outgrowth of our other innovations. When creating platforms to publish, we took a hard look at the peer review system,” he shares. “We are correcting the inconsistencies and biases that were built into the out-dated system. We ask so much from peer reviewers and editors and generally provide little to nothing in the way of education and training. MERIT solves that problem by providing clear standards based on defined pillars of ethical standards, academic rigor, consistency and  novelty.” 

Not only is MERIT Review the first to offer a standardized approach, it also promotes fair compensation of its peer reviewers, a boon to academics.  

“A review takes time, even when the MERIT Method provides a rubric for measuring the potential of an academic paper,” explains Dr. Arboleda-Velasquez. “We believe that academics should be compensated for the time that they invest in evaluating the work of others.”

Third-party peer review also frees academics to publish their work wherever they would like. The traditional peer review to academic publishing process means that the publishers control which studies get published and also control the distribution. MERIT uncouples the process of quality assessment from that of content distribution effectively unshackling academic communication. 

Dr. Arboleda-Velasquez asserts, “MERIT empowers people to publish their peer-reviewed findings anywhere that they see fit. They can get their research distributed via social media or traditional media outlets. Once a paper gets the MERIT stamp of approval it is ready to fly and be distributed by any publisher or by the author or their institution.” 

Establishing MERIT Review has not been without its challenges. One of the biggest conceptual hurdles was the development of comprehensive standards for academic peer review — a field that historically lacked structured guidelines. 

“Deconstructing this unstructured process and defining clear, minimal standards that could be broadly applicable across diverse academic fields was a formidable conceptual task,” he says. “But we firmly believe that the MERIT method can be applied across all disciplines.” 

Arboleda-Velasquez defined this minimum standard as a publicon, the minimum of information a manuscript should add to a field to justify publication and distribution. 

As MERIT Review debuts, its potential to reshape academic publishing is clear. Dr. Arboleda-Velasquez sees a future where publishers, academic institutions, research hospitals, and individual researchers adopt the MERIT standard to guide their peer review processes. 

“In the ideal future, we see a significant acceleration in the progress of academic research and the dissemination of knowledge,” he says. “Ultimately, MERIT Review aims to enhance the efficiency and integrity of scholarly communication on a global scale.”

The MERIT Review impact on the academic community will be profound. To find out more, visit meritreview.com.