Peer Review Week 2026 Tackles the Growing Capacity Crisis in Scholarly Publishing

Peer review has long been described as the gatekeeping mechanism of science, the process through which new findings are scrutinized before they enter the scholarly record. Yet the system that underpins trust in research is itself under strain. As global research output continues to expand and submission volumes climb across journals in nearly every discipline, the number of qualified reviewers has not grown at a matching pace. This imbalance, often described as the peer review capacity challenge, is the central theme of Peer Review Week 2026, which runs from 14 to 18 September 2026. Editage, the flagship brand of Cactus Technology Solutions (CACTUS), is marking the annual event for the eleventh consecutive year, this time in partnership with the European Association of Science Editors (EASE), under the theme Peer Review Capacity: Volume, Speed, and Quality.

The choice of theme reflects a tension that has been building in scholarly publishing for years. Journals are receiving more manuscripts than ever, driven by growth in the number of researchers worldwide, the proliferation of open access outlets, and increasing pressure on academics to publish. At the same time, peer review depends on a finite pool of experts who volunteer their time, often without recognition or compensation. The result is a system in which the demand for reviews increasingly outstrips the available supply, forcing editors to issue more invitations, wait longer for acceptances, and sometimes settle for reviewers with less relevant expertise. The question confronting the community, as the organizers frame it, is how to balance volume and speed with the quality, expertise, and integrity that peer review depends on.

Akhilesh Ayer, CEO of Cactus Technology Solutions, emphasized the stakes in a statement accompanying the announcement. Peer review, he said, is central to the scholarly publishing ecosystem, and as that ecosystem undergoes a transition, it is critical to address the growing capacity challenges at scale while ensuring that trust, integrity, and quality remain at the core of the process. He added that the future will depend on how effectively the community can handle the growing volume of research, evolving technologies, and shifting expectations while upholding the principles that underpin peer review. His remarks capture the dual challenge facing publishers: scaling a volunteer-driven process to meet industrial-scale demand without eroding the safeguards that give the process its legitimacy.

Peer Review Week itself has become a fixture of the scholarly communications calendar. Convened each September, it brings together stakeholders from across the publishing ecosystem, including researchers, reviewers, editors, and publishers worldwide, for a coordinated week of discussions, webinars, and resources. The decentralized format allows organizations to host their own events under a shared annual theme, which in recent years has touched on topics such as research integrity, identity in peer review, and the role of artificial intelligence. For 2026, the capacity theme places the sustainability of the review workforce at the center of the conversation, an issue that many editors describe as one of the most pressing operational problems in publishing today.

Editage’s program for the week is structured around several complementary formats. The centerpiece is a live panel discussion titled Reviewer Fatigue, Invisible Labor, and the Sustainability Problem, which will examine how reviewers can be better supported and whether the peer review model itself needs to evolve to address the growing demands placed on the system. The panel brings together three figures with distinct vantage points on the problem: Alice Meadows, an independent scholarly communications consultant and open research advocate; Daniel Gorelick, editor-in-chief of Biology Open and associate professor at Baylor College of Medicine; and Mario Malički, associate director of the Stanford Program on Research Rigor and Reproducibility and chair of the EASE Peer Review Committee.

The framing of the panel highlights concepts that have gained traction in recent years. Reviewer fatigue refers to the exhaustion experienced by researchers who receive a steady stream of review invitations, often from multiple journals simultaneously, and who may decline or delay responses as a result. Invisible labor describes the fact that peer review is largely unpaid, uncredited in many career evaluations, and performed on top of teaching, research, and administrative duties. Together, these dynamics raise questions about whether the traditional model, in which journals rely on the goodwill of volunteer reviewers, can remain sustainable as submission volumes grow, or whether new incentives, recognition mechanisms, or workflow innovations are required.

Beyond the panel, Editage has scheduled a live manuscript peer review walkthrough led by Dr. Raffaella Gozzelino. The session is designed to give researchers a firsthand view of how reviewers assess submissions, offering practical insights that authors can apply to strengthen their own manuscripts and better understand the process from the other side of the editorial workflow. For early-career researchers in particular, who are often asked to review without formal training, such demonstrations serve a dual purpose: they demystify the reviewer’s task and help cultivate the next generation of competent reviewers, which is itself part of any long-term answer to the capacity problem.

Artificial intelligence features prominently in this year’s program through an interview series titled Peer Review in the Age of AI: What Should Stay Human? The series asks experts to share their views on how AI is reshaping peer review and where human judgment, expertise, and oversight remain critical. Participants include Laura Dormer, editor-in-chief of Learned Publishing at the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP); Maryam Sayab, executive director of the Asian Council of Science Editors (ACSE); and Roohi Ghosh, ambassador for researcher success at CACTUS and vice chair of the EASE India Chapter. The question posed by the series is one that publishers and editors are actively debating: whether AI tools can help triage manuscripts, check statistical rigor, or assist reviewers, without displacing the human accountability on which the credibility of the process rests.

The partnership with EASE adds an institutional dimension to the event. Malički welcomed the collaboration, noting that EASE sees the week as an opportunity to engage in a conversation on the volume, speed, and quality of peer review. He pointed to one of EASE’s most viewed resources, the Peer Review Toolkit, which includes a guide on how to assess peer review quality, and said the organization is looking forward to conversations that can help update that guide. The remark underscores a practical outcome that events like Peer Review Week can produce: the refinement of shared standards and resources that editors and reviewers actually use, informed by the current state of debate across the community.

This year Editage is also extending the conversation geographically, taking the global discussion to researchers across Japan, Korea, and China with tailored events designed to bring broader perspectives to audiences beyond the English-speaking research community. The move acknowledges that the capacity challenge is global in nature: the growth in submissions is driven in large part by rapidly expanding research communities in Asia and elsewhere, and any sustainable solution will need to engage reviewers, editors, and authors across those regions rather than treating the problem as one confined to Western publishing houses. As the scholarly publishing ecosystem undergoes its current transition, the organizers argue, it is important to consider where peer review is headed and how the community can ensure that quality, trust, and integrity, the core pillars of the process, remain intact.

Participation in Editage’s Peer Review Week 2026 event, organized in partnership with EASE, is open to all, and sessions will be available on demand to registrants along with additional resources from the event. For a system that depends on voluntary labor and mutual trust, the week offers a rare moment of collective reflection. Whether the discussions yield concrete changes in how reviews are solicited, recognized, and supported remains to be seen, but the growing attention to reviewer fatigue, invisible labor, and the promise and limits of AI suggests that the capacity challenge has moved from the margins of editorial concern to the center of the industry’s agenda.

Subject of Research: The peer review capacity challenge in scholarly publishing and efforts to sustain volume, speed, and quality during Peer Review Week 2026

Article Title: Editage to explore the capacity challenge in Peer Review during the Peer Review Week 2026

Article References: Editage to explore the capacity challenge in Peer Review during the Peer Review Week 2026. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

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Keywords: peer review, Peer Review Week 2026, Editage, CACTUS, EASE, scholarly publishing, reviewer fatigue, invisible labor, artificial intelligence, research integrity, academic journals, peer review capacity