Peer Review Week 2025: Focusing on the aspects that must stay uniquely human

This week is Peer Review Week. The theme for this year is ‘Rethinking Peer Review in the AI Era’ and we are encouraged to consider how artificial intelligence is reshaping the peer review landscape. One of the questions that is being explored during this week is ‘What aspects of peer review must remain uniquely human?’. At PLOS Mental Health, we believe that the peer review process should always serve to benefit not just the authors, but the reviewers. Reviewers are not just helping to improve the manuscript, but are exposing themselves to learning opportunities that will help with their own research and manuscript preparation. Given our journal’s mission to support Early Career Researchers and Advocates, who may not necessarily have extensive peer review experience, in honor of peer review week, we offered them a short training session that went over the principles of, and tips for, peer review. We believe that these types of interactions should remain uniquely human. 

We are providing a recording of the training workshop below as a resource to anyone who would like to learn more about peer review or to anyone who would like a refresher. We hope the content of the workshop helps some of you to feel more confident when receiving invites to review a paper and also helps you when preparing your own manuscripts. 

We would like to thank all of those who attended the workshop.