GoKawiilStudy finds firms advertising paid freelance peer-review jobs for journals
A preprint posted on MetaArXiv on September 8 identified roughly 1,000 online ads for freelance peer-reviewer positions and included interviews with five current and former researchers in India, Spain and the UK who said they had taken such jobs. The study, led by Radboud University's Amna Pottarath, suggests some journals may be outsourcing peer review to third-party firms, though it does not name specific journals or quantify how widespread the practice is.