De-legitimising the social sciences and humanities through peer review

This chapter argues that traditional models of scholarly peer review are ill-equipped to promote social sciences and humanities (SSH) innovation and value. As a formalised process regulating the publication (or not) of scholarly manuscripts, peer review evolved in a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) paradigm to meet STEM priorities (during the Cold-War industrialisation of research), operating as a verification and quality control tool. Envisioning the SSH-STEM as a spectrum, we argue that the unsustainable nature of the current peer review models has resulted in the need to seek indirect expertise as reviewers at the peripheries of this spectrum. The devolution of expertise applied within blinded peer review processes acts as a contributor of SSH ‘colonisation’ by applying thresholds for publication determined by values and research practices that are commonplace in STEM, but an anathema in SSH. This chapter therefore questions the suitability of a STEM-size-fits-all approach to peer review and explores the possibility of a bespoke model of peer review for SSH. It examines two possible models of peer review for SSH: the first that relies on the editor as a curator of SSH-research and promotion of its innate value; and the second which downgrades the role of the editor in preference for direct and open conversation between authors and crowd-sourced ‘peer-to-peer’ reviewers under transparent conditions.