Peer reviewers for a leading Royal Society journal will receive a £100 voucher for every paper they assess, which can be used to reduce future publishing costs.
Under a new pilot scheme to reward peer review, contributors to Open Biology will be awarded tokens that can be redeemed against article processing charges (APCs) when they publish with the gold open access journal.
From this month, the vouchers can be used in isolation or stacked towards the £1,400 cost of publishing, with co-authors able to combine peer review credits to offset the amount charged to academics or their institutions.
The scheme represents the latest effort to recognise and reward the many hours of work spent by scholars on peer review, which is typically unpaid, despite often being conducted on behalf of for-profit periodicals.
