From 2003 to 2023 the research landscape has grown nearly 200% from 1,515,000 citable research documents, to 4,793,000. The diversity of these publications has also increased, with over two thirds of research contributed by researchers in western nations in 2003, but only about 40% of research being contributed by western nations in 2023. Around 40% of all citable documents are now contributed by researchers in Asia.

However, this diversity is not reflected on editorial boards, which remain broadly the same as twenty years ago. Lack of diversity creates inequality in assessment of research due to the existence of homophily in peer review where editors will tend to use reviewers from the same regions as they are based.

The true benefit of a research community practicing open research was seen during the global pandemic. Impact wasn’t defined by a citation metric; impact was defined as research that advanced the pace of discovery. Despite the impact shown and lessons learnt, similar article types are today frowned on by researchers as "low quality", as their value is not captured by current citation behaviours. Indeed, it has been reported that around 50% of funded research remains unpublished.

Source https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2025/07/18/is-there-a-strain-on-peer-review-its-more-complicated-than-you-think/

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