| > Do universities require staff to perform a certain number of reviews in academic journals? No. Reviewers mostly do it because its expected of them, and they want to publish their own papers so they can get grants In the end, the university only cares about the grant (money), because they get a cut - somewhere between 30-70% depending on the instituition/field - for "overhead" Its like the mafia - everyone has a boss they kick up to. My old boss (PI on an RO1) explained it like this Ideas -> Grant -> Money -> Equipment/Personnel -> Experiments -> Data -> Paper -> Submit/Review/Publish (hopefully) -> Ideas -> Grant If you don't review, go to conferences/etc. its much less likely your own papers will get published, and you won't get approved for grants. Sadly there is still a bit of "junior high popularity contest" , scratch my back I'll scratch yours that is still present in even "highly respected" science journals. I hear this from basically every scientist I've known. Even successful ones - not just the marginal ones. |