Peer review is a cornerstone of the science system. Previous studies have found that peer review in the social sciences primarily prompted changes in the theoretical framing of papers and contextualisation of results, while the methodological sections were largely untouched, with associated patterns of change in reference lists. We ask whether this focus on theory over methods also occurs in other fields. To assess this, we matched preprints from Dimensions with published articles from Web of Science, PLOS and Scopus to identify 6,002 preprint-publication pairs across all fields. We then compared their reference lists and calculated the proportion of retained, added and removed references, and also identified in which sections of publications the references were cited. We found that the medical sciences added and removed significantly more references between preprint and publication than did the natural sciences, which had more bibliographically stable manuscripts. By proportion, the introduction and discussion sections underwent the most bibliographic change in both fields, however by ratio of added to unchanged references, the methodology and results section had greater change. Our results suggest there are important differences between fields in how reference lists change between preprint and publication, and that the focus of theory over methodology in the social sciences may not extend to the natural sciences or medical sciences.

Changing the shoulders I am standing on: Describing the changes that occurred in publications' reference lists after peer review

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**Chair:** Peter Van Den Besselaar, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam


3. Peering into peer review

technical paper

Following the success of the 1st PEERE International Conference on Peer Review, the PEERE COST Action follow-up community organised the second edition of the PEERE International Conference on Peer Review  and was celebrated virtually on 29 September – 1 October 2020.

The conference welcomed any contribution (e.g., original research, position papers, literature reviews) that used any method (e.g., quantitative, experimental or qualitative) to investigate peer review in a variety of scientific domains (e.g., scholarly journals, funding agencies, research assessment). Interdisciplinary research is especially welcome.

The program is published here: http://tiny.cc/peere2020 


PEERE

The second edition of the PEERE International Conference on Peer Review aims to provide a forum for scholars, practitioners and science stakeholders to share research, models, tools and experience on peer review in different fields, e.g., medicine, computer science, social sciences and humanities. It aims to stimulate the use of evidence-based research in the design and implementation of peer review in a variety of fields and encourage more systematic research.

Dimity Stephen

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Changing the shoulders I am standing on: Describing the changes that occurred in publications' reference lists after peer review

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