Why does peer review take so long?
If your manuscript is sent out for peer review, you’ll usually have to wait at least a few months to receive a decision from the editor. It can be unclear why it takes this long for the journal to assess your submission, but knowing the steps that are being taken and the reasons for common delays can make it easier to understand.
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Usual timeframes
Before we start discussing timeframes for each stage of the peer review process, it’s important to note that these are just estimates and won’t apply to every paper you submit. Timeframes can vary wildly from field to field, journal to journal and even paper to paper.
If the journal you’re submitting to states prospective timeframes or its recent average timeframes, it’s best to refer to those rather than our ranges below. Keep in mind that it’s not always possible for journals to meet the aims that they set and that many of the papers a journal receives will be under consideration for longer than the average time to reach a decision.
You may also find that the review process takes longer at certain times of the year. During exam marking periods, for example, people have less time to devote to reviewing. Equally, over the holidays people may check their work email less frequently and so may miss review invitations.
With all of those caveats in place, here are some basic timeframes for the stages of the review process listed in the previous section of this guide:
- Initial assessment (1-7 days): this includes the time for the editor to read your full submission, consider it in relation to other papers they have received and what they have recently published and decide whether or not the paper is suitable for review. Quick decisions at this stage are generally rejections.
- Review invitations (7-21 days): in this time, the editor will look into your specific field to find appropriate reviewers and contact them (often with an email explaining why they’d be a good reviewer for your paper). Reviewers are generally asked to respond to review invitations within one to two weeks.
- External review (21-90 days): this stage will vary a lot depending on your field and the journal you’re submitting to. During the three-week to three-month period, external reviewers will read and assess your manuscript, write up their review and submit it to the journal. It may also be worth adding that all reviewers offer their help as a favour to the journal, not as a duty that editors can require to be performed. Goodwill between editors and reviewers has to be maintained and that means not asking for too much, too often or too soon.
- Review assessment and decision (7-21 days): the final stage of the review process begins when the last review is submitted. Editors will reread your manuscript as well as each of the reviews. They will assess both the reviews and your paper in light of them before making a decision and sending it to you.
Most common delays
Regardless of the timeframes or aims of a journal, there will sometimes be delays to the review process. With multiple people involved in the process, all of whom have other demands on their time, delays can come from a number of different places. These are some of the most common:
- Submission mistake: One very common (but usually easy to overcome) delay is a mistake at some stage in the submission process. This can be anything from submitting a manuscript that is over the word count limit to sending it to the wrong person. These types of errors prevent your manuscript from beginning the review process at all. Make sure to check the journal’s style guide and submission instructions to avoid these delays.
- Difficulty finding reviewers: Most journals will seek at least one external reviewer to help assess your manuscript. In some cases, this can be quite a difficult task. Usually, this isn’t a reflection on the manuscript – for example, during exam marking periods, fewer people have time to devote to reviewing; or for niche manuscripts there may be a smaller pool of possible reviewers. Editors will always try to get manuscripts out for review as quickly as possible. In some cases though, this involves seeking out, contacting and waiting for a response from multiple people.
- Non-responsive reviewers: Whenever an editor invites someone to review a manuscript, they need to wait for a response. In the majority of cases, the invited reviewers are able to respond within a few days. However, reviewers are incredibly busy – they often have research, teaching and writing responsibilities not to mention other reviews (and that’s before even thinking about a work-life balance). This means that it isn’t always possible for them to get back to a review invitation immediately. Journals tend to have cut-off times when they will move on and invite a different reviewer, but these are generally at least 10 days. During this time, not much can happen with the manuscript.
- Overdue reviews: Similar to the ‘non-responsive reviewers’ delay, the ‘overdue reviews’ delay is one where the editor is waiting for information from an external reviewer. In this case, they’re waiting for the reviewer’s assessment of the manuscript. There can be a number of reasons why a review may take longer than expected – workload (as noted above) is the most common. Reviewers will sometimes request extensions if they know that they have a particularly busy period coming up but still want to provide a review. In some situations though, the delays can’t be anticipated.
- Unhelpful or opposing reviews: The vast majority of reviews that editors receive are hugely important and make a big impact on the final decision on a manuscript. Every now and then though, they will receive a review that is not helpful at all (you can find out what makes a bad review here). When this happens, Editors will often need to find an alternative reviewer. This effectively moves the paper back to the ‘review invitations’ stage. Editors will often try to use their own networks or call in favours to try to get this second stage of review completed as quickly as possible. A similar situation occurs when two completely opposite reviews are submitted for a topic that is outside the editor’s direct area of expertise and a tie-breaking assessment is needed.
- Editor workload: Editors are just as busy (if not busier) than reviewers. Most Editors hold research and teaching positions in universities alongside their journal work. Many are relatively senior academics as well - which can bring increased duties in terms of leading departments, supervising PhD and Masters students, etc. – and review for other journals when they can. Again, this is all on top of any potential duties or responsibilities they have outside work. For many, this leaves limited time for work-life balance and means that any additions to their to-do list (e.g. exam marking, conference attendance, higher than usual submission rates) understandably lead to delays in the review process.
Where to now?
- Back: What is peer review?
- Next: Responding to peer reviews
- Return to the ECR Hub homepage
- Ready to submit your manuscript? Discover the step-by-step guide to publishing with Edinburgh University Press
