Science depends on peer review, but the process can be delayed. To solve this problem, in July 2024, the magazine open biology He tried something unconventional: paying his reviewers.

In the six-month experiment, reviewers who within four business days delivered a report that their editor considered to be of good quality were paid £220 ($290) per manuscript.

The plan, known as Fast & Fair, was so successful¹ that the newspaper never looked back. Earlier this month, results from the first 18 months of operations were reported in a preprint.².

Paying reviewers not only led to faster first editorial decisions (an average of 5.5 business days, compared with nearly 38 for unpaid reviews (see ‘Paying peer reviewers speeds up editorial decision time’)), but the quality of reviews, judged by handling editors on the basis of their usefulness in making an editorial decision, increased (see ‘Fast, paid peer review did not affect editorial decisions’).

Nature spoke with developmental biologist and toxicologist Daniel Gorelick of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, who has served as open biologyEditor-in-chief since July 2023.

How did the idea for Fast & Fair peer review come about?

As a working scientist, I have always been frustrated with some elements of peer review. It takes longer than it should. And often the reviews are not of sufficient quality to improve the article.

And I thought one way to fix it would be to pay reviewers because, honestly, it seemed obvious. People get paid to do a job and there is proof³ of economic studies showing that incentives such as money can improve performance. So I thought, why not try this with peer review?

How does Fast & Fair peer review work in practice?

It’s easy to get the idea of ​​paying peer reviewers. The difficult thing was the execution. First, we designed an experiment that would test the hypothesis that paying peer reviewers would work, without tearing our hair out, losing a ton of money, or going bankrupt.

One key thing was to have a database of pre-hired peer reviewers before submitting any manuscript for peer review. We created a contract that researchers must accept in order to participate.. When you receive a review request, you have one business day to accept or decline the invitation. Of course, you can reject it for any reason. But if you agree to review, you have four business days to submit it. If you don’t meet that deadline, or the editor handling the manuscript finds the review unhelpful, then you don’t get paid.

I think that part really sets this experiment apart from other experiments in the past, where there were no stipulations about quality or delivery times.

We tested this experiment for six months, starting in July 2024, with 20 submissions handled by two of our ten academic editors. Once we saw that the pilot data confirmed that it was successful¹We expanded the experiment in April 2025 to all ten academic publishers. And the only exceptions are when we do not have pre-hired reviewers with the necessary experience to review the manuscripts.

In these rare cases, we give authors the option between submitting their manuscript to another journal (no hard feelings) or submitting it through conventional peer review. If we can’t find reviewers with the right experience, we’re not going to cut corners just because we want to meet a seven-day turnaround time. We will never ever sacrifice rigor for speed.

How are paid peer reviewers chosen?

When researchers apply to become paid peer reviewers open biologyWe analyze their CVs and check if they are legitimate and have peer review experience. We currently have 500 pre-hired reviewers from around the world. Ideally, what I envision is a system where requesting reviewers take a manuscript review test. And we would review that review, so if it had a high enough score, we would hire them.

How is Fast & Fair peer review funded?

The scheme is funded by the journal’s publisher, The Company of Biologists, which is a non-profit charity based in Cambridge, UK. We evaluate the plan every year. We are approved to go through the end of calendar year 2026 at this time. Beyond that, I’ll have to make the case that this deserves to continue for another year and meet with the editor, who will make that decision.