Are you an EGU member with no or little experience in peer-reviewing? Are you looking for a way to gain confidence as a referee? Look no further! Join the EGU peer review training!

Being invited to serve as a referee without prior experience can feel daunting and raise questions, like; ‘Should I accept the editor’s invitation?’, ‘Am I equipped with enough expertise to evaluate someone else’s work?’, ‘What constitutes a good review?’, ‘How can I provide constructive feedback without being overly critical?’, ‘How to deal with ethical considerations such as plagiarism or predatory journals?’

To help you say ‘yes’ to requests to review with confidence, and to give you the answers to all these questions and more, EGU is offering a limited number of places on a FREE peer review training workshop. Did we spark your interest? Read on!

EGU recognises the general lack of peer review training within the geoscience community. Both our organisation and the scientific community as a whole can greatly benefit from a more structured and thorough training of our members, to help them become experienced, constructive, and humble referees. Starting more than 20 years ago, EGU with our publishing partner Copernicus Publications, publishes 19 peer-reviewed open access journals using an innovative, multi-stage, public peer review model. This model includes a discussion stage that encourages public commenting on preprints by referees, authors, and other members of the scientific community. This open access, public peer review system is highly effective in ensuring scientific excellence through self-regulation and transparency.

The free training EGU is offering consists of three online sessions led by an experienced peer review trainer over a four-week period in September-October 2023. The training will involve not only discussions about peer review methods, but will also use the EGU’s interactive community platform EGUsphere to actually practice peer review on preprints aimed at publication in an EGU journal.

Training schedule:

• Session 1 11 September 2023, 16:00 CEST, 60 min: Get started with an engaging overview of the peer review process, followed by an introduction to multi-stage open peer review in EGU journals. At the end of this session, you will be assigned a preprint with relation to your relevant EGU journal.
  Homework: Draft a review on your assigned preprint…
• Session 2 18 September 2023, 16:00 CEST, 90 min: In this interactive session, you will have the opportunity to address any doubts or questions you may have regarding review criteria. Moreover, you will engage in group discussions with editors of EGU journals, allowing you to delve deeper into journal-specific review criteria and gain valuable insights.
  Homework: Collaborate with your peers to receive valuable feedback and refine your review draft.
• Session 3 9 October 2023, 16:00 CEST, 60 min: You will receive personalised feedback on your report from your peers and from editors of EGU journals, and learn how to upload it to EGUsphere or the journal website. After session 3 you will have everything you need to submit your first review and we encourage you, as graduates of this program, to become active peer reviewers in your field of expertise.

By taking part in this training you will:

• gain confidence in scientific reviewing
• learn about the open peer review in EGU journals and general features of peer review
• get the answers to your questions
• upon successfully completing the course, participants who have passed will be added to the Copernicus reviewer database

What are you waiting for?! Places for this FREE workshop are limited so if you wish to participate please complete this application form by 30 June 2023. Only EGU Members can apply to participate in this workshop and attendees will be shortlisted by the EGU Publications Committee, selected by their answers on the form and successful applicants will be emailed with further information after the deadline has passed.

If you have any questions, please email the EGU Editorial Manager Eduardo Queiroz Alves.

• EGU Publications Committee
• EGU Open Access Journals