Before accepting an invitation to review, you should ask yourself the three questions below. You may also wish to consult the COPE flowchart on What to consider when asked to peer review a manuscript
1. Is the paper within your field of expertise?
The invitation email you have been sent contains abstract of the paper as well as reviewing instructions. The abstract will help you decide whether you have the necessary expertise to conduct an insightful and useful peer review. Please decline to review if you do not have the relevant expertise.
2. Do you have a conflict of interest?
Peer reviewers are asked to declare any conflicts of interest when invited to review.
The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations state:
"The potential for conflict of interest and bias exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patients' welfare or the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain). Perceptions of conflict of interest are as important as actual conflicts of interest."
"Financial relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership or options, honoraria, patents, and paid expert testimony) are the most easily identifiable, the ones most often judged to represent potential conflicts of interest and thus the most likely to undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors, and of science itself. Other interests may also represent or be perceived as conflicts, such as personal relationships or rivalries, academic competition, and intellectual beliefs."
As a reviewer you should ask yourself if there is anything that may bias your judgement when performing the task required. If so, you need to state this within your declaration of interest.
If you are currently employed at the same institution as any of the authors or have been a recent collaborator (defined as anyone who has co-authored a paper or was a principal investigator on a grant with any of the authors within the past 48 months) then please decline to review the paper.
You should not agree to review a manuscript just to gain sight of it with no intention of submitting a review, nor agree to review a manuscript that is very similar to one you have in preparation or under consideration with another journal. If you are unsure about a potential competing interest that may prevent you from reviewing, raise this with the Managing Editor.
All disclosures of potential conflicts of interest are considered by the Associate Editor handling the paper.
3. Do you have the time to review it?
We do appreciate that you may not have the time to peer review, and in such cases we would really appreciate it if you could decline promptly, so we can then send out a new invitation and avoid delays.
When assigning you a paper to review, we will give you a deadline. If you are interested in conducting a review but are unable to meet the due date, please accept the invitation and request an extension.
If you cannot, do you know someone who can?
If you are unable to accept the invitation to review based on any of the above reasons, then suggestions for alternate reviewers would be gratefully received.