We need to promote interdisciplinary research in ophthalmology and vision science, bringing together not only researchers working on different parts of the eye, but also basic scientists with clinicians, and researchers outside of ophthalmology whose interests or technologies can overlap in some way. I think journals like Graefe’s which publish a broad array and diversity of articles can highlight this type of interdisciplinary research and meetings such as ARVO can provide a forum for these researchers in various disciplines to interact.

I also think we all need to be advocates for vision science research. One of the critical issues for the sustainability of research in ophthalmology is having the funding to support it. We need to promote what we are doing to the appropriate government agencies, philanthropic foundations, and industry to highlight the importance of research in ophthalmology to protect the eyesight of our growing population Figures 1 and 2.

Fig. 1

Editors-in Chief with our publisher: Left to right: Rebecca Shreeve, Vas Sadda, Antonia Joussen, Taiji Sakamoto

Fig. 2

Di-Ep Editorial Office Team: Left to right: Evelyn Gardner, Ilana Herd, Diana Epstein, Phillip Kay, Mumtaz Chatterjee

As journals move towards open access where do you see societies and publishers place in assisting young residents, independent scholars and doctors with no funding to publish?

I think this is a significant challenge but also an opportunity. I have highlighted the importance of advocacy for ensuring that there is adequate funding to support vision science research. Similarly, we need advocacy to generate funding through grants and awards that can support our aspiring vision scientists in getting their hard work published. So these same sources such as governmental grants, and philanthropic and industry-sponsored awards need to be solicited to support these scholars. Societies and organizations such as ARVO and others, will make available travel grants and other awards for young vision research scientists to attend scientific meetings and present their work. Similar grants could potentially be used to support publication costs in the future.

What message do you have for paper mills?

When I think of paper mill, I think of essentially a pay-for-play scheme where a journal will publish an article for a cost, with no or minimal peer-review process. This is in my view purely a business and is very different from a genuine scientific peer-review journal which has open access charges simply to cover the cost of publishing and maintaining the journal. I worry about the harm it does to our vision science community, particularly in this era of generative AI and large language models. It is not always immediately apparent to young researchers the difference between a predatory paper mill and a genuine rigorous peer-review scientific journal. We all depend on a rigorous peer-review process to ensure that the content that gets out to the vision science community has been checked for accuracy, validated, and presented in the optimal way. If this process is subverted via these paper mills, the content that gets out into public domain may be invalid and inaccurate. The large language model AI chatbots may not be able to distinguish this from valid scientific content and may exacerbate the situation by propagating this disinformation. Thus, this is a great disservice and harm to our community. We need everyone and every publisher to ensure a rigorous and thoughtful peer-review process.

What do you feel is the future of peer-review?

I view peer-review very much like I view jury duty. We are all busy with many clinical and scientific responsibilities, but I view participation in peer-review also as one of our core duties and responsibilities as a vision scientist. I have highlighted the potential dangers of AI models, but I do think we will see an increasing role of AI in the future. We already use analytical services to look for overlap and possible plagiarism with previous publications, but one can easily see how the role of AI may increase in evaluating certain aspects of an article. Having said that, I do believe that human intelligence and human reviewers are going to remain central to the peer-review process. We will need training programs to emphasize this responsibility, and continue to include peer-review preparatory activities, for example discussion forums such as journal clubs, in the curricula of their training programs. This will increase the pool of capable peer-reviewers. I also anticipate that societies and journals themselves will provide additional training resources to cultivate capable peer-reviewers.

What are the qualities you look for in a peer-reviewer?

Expertise in the topic of the paper is certainly an important quality, but experience and rigor as a peer-reviewer is equally important. A superficial review with a one or two sentence synopsis is not of much value to the authors or the editor. A reviewer must provide a more detailed dive into both the strengths and weaknesses of the paper, and most critically opportunities for clarification and improvement. When I read the review of one of our reviewers for Graefe’s I look for this insight and detail in the review, and it is of tremendous help to me. I am very grateful to our exceptional team of reviewers for Graefe’s. We really count on their expertise and dedication in ensuring the rigor and integrity of the work we publish in Graefe’s.

Another important quality of a reviewer, of course, is timeliness. We pride ourselves on a thorough but expeditious review process at Graefe’s as it is important for a vision scientist to get their exciting work out to the community as soon as possible. This requires our reviewers to return their reviews on time. We are very fortunate at Graefe’s to have an outstanding editorial office, who really helps us streamline this peer-review process and produce what I believe is a world-class vision science journal.