Spotting potential reviewers for interdisciplinary research: insights on active reviewers from Publons

The increasing significance of interdisciplinary research poses a challenge in evaluating its quality and emphasizes the need for academic journals to choose appropriate reviewers for interdisciplinary research. Several studies have focused on the problems in reviewing interdisciplinary research, but fewer studies on the challenges of recruiting suitable reviewers for interdisciplinary research. Our study collects a specific group of active interdisciplinary reviewers who were awarded the “Top 1% reviewers in Cross-field” by Publons—a recognition for reviewers conducting the highest number of reviews in corresponding fields. We aim to examine the interdisciplinary backgrounds and intrinsic interactivity of these active interdisciplinary reviewers in various academic activities, alongside exploring the countries, institutions, and research fields they represent. Our findings shed light on the uneven distribution of active interdisciplinary reviewers among countries and institutions. We also observe that active interdisciplinary reviewers often possess high interdisciplinarity in their research activities, and this interdisciplinarity increases as their reviewing and research experience grows. Notably, moderately experienced reviewers (with 6–10 years of reviewing experience) are the primary force of active interdisciplinary reviewers. We also advocate for inviting reviewers with varied levels of research and reviewing experience commensurate with the interdisciplinarity or complexity of the research. Moreover, active interdisciplinary reviewers demonstrate a strong disciplinary similarity and correlation among their research, reviewing, and editorial activities. Given the mounting pressure and challenges associated with reviewing interdisciplinary research, we propose several recommendations based on our analysis.