PWS, ever enough reviewers!

Pharmacy World and Science (PWS), is the official journal of the Royal Dutch Association for the Advancement of Pharmacy (KNMP) and provides an outlet for peer-reviewed research in the areas of clinical pharmacy and pharmaceutical care. PWS is also affiliated with the European Society for Clinical Pharmacy (ESCP).

PWS is widely indexed in many Abstracting & Indexing services, such as Current Contents/Life Sciences, EMBASE, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition, Medline, SCOPUS, Science Citation Index and Science Citation Index Expanded.

Peer-review

As per the Council of Science Editors white paper http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/editorial_policies/whitepaper/2-3_reviewer.cfm. Peer review is an essential component of the conduct of science and its dissemination and remains the principal mechanism by which the quality of research is judged. Most funding decisions in science and the academic advancement of scientists are based on peer-reviewed publications.

PWS has grown considerably over the last few years, publishing more than 1,000 pages in 2008 and, being a victim of its own success, PWS is now continuously on the look-out for new reviewers in the field of clinical pharmacy and, in particular, the field of medication errors.

What does it take to be a reviewer for PWS?

Reviewers should have a relevant, advanced academic degree and should be engaged in full- or part-time research in the field of clinical pharmacology, clinical pharmacy, social pharmacy, or pharmaco-epidemiology. A sound understanding of the English language is, of course, preferable and last but not least, reviewers should have the desire to help their colleagues to translate good research into good articles.

How to become a reviewer for PWS

If you have already published in a peer-review journal, you are somewhat obliged to return the compliment for others and make your contribution to the scientific community. If you think you have the necessary spirit, do not hesitate to contact the Editor-in-Chief of Pharmacy World & Science and send (email) him a short CV with a covering note.

I am afraid that PWS is unable to reward reviewers financially, but you will become richer through experience. More often than not, you will be requested to review papers in your field of expertise, so you will have advanced exposure to forthcoming literature. It is also not uncommon to be able to establish new research collaborations through this new network.

And if I think a paper is really bad….

Then you can reject the paper, with good arguments of course. The reviewing process for PWS is single-blind, so there need not be worries about any future ‘mixed feelings’. By the way, PWS currently rejects about 50% of the papers submitted, so you will not be the only one who finds a paper not suitable for publication in our Journal.

Want to know more? Mail the Editor-in-Chief at pws@springer.com.