For Authors
How Long Does Peer Review Take?
Boston Research Journals
Peer review is the cornerstone of scholarly quality control, but for authors waiting on a decision, the process can feel opaque and unpredictable. How long does peer review take? The short, data-backed answer: across all fields, the average time from submission to a first decision is about 13 weeks, ranging from roughly 8 weeks in medicine to 18 weeks in economics and business. The variation is large, and it is not random. Understanding what drives peer review timelines, at each stage and across different types of journals, helps authors set realistic expectations, make better submission decisions, and respond productively when a review runs long.
This article walks through the stages of peer review, the measured timelines at each stage, field-by-field data from the largest author survey on the subject, the speed figures major publishers report about themselves, the factors that delay the process, and what authors can and cannot control.
The Stages of Peer Review and Their Timelines
Peer review does not begin and end with reviewers reading a manuscript. The full process comprises several distinct stages, each with its own timeline and failure modes.
Desk Review
When a manuscript arrives at a journal, an editor, typically a handling or associate editor and sometimes the editor-in-chief for smaller journals, performs a desk check before the paper is sent to external reviewers. This stage filters for scope fit, basic methodological adequacy, and compliance with the journal's formatting and ethical requirements.
Surveys of authors and editors commonly report that desk review decisions are made within one to two weeks at well-staffed journals, though some journals take longer during peak submission periods. A desk rejection at this stage, while disappointing, is actually a time-saving outcome: it returns the manuscript to the author faster than a full review would, allowing prompt resubmission elsewhere.
Reviewer Recruitment
Once a manuscript passes desk review, the editor must identify and invite appropriate peer reviewers. This is often the least visible stage to authors, but it is one of the most variable. Editors maintain reviewer databases and may have standing relationships with colleagues who review regularly, but finding reviewers who are genuinely expert in a specific subfield, who have capacity, and who do not have conflicts of interest with the authors or their work can take time.
Studies of editorial workflows commonly report that first-round reviewer recruitment takes one to three weeks on average when reviewers respond promptly, but can extend substantially when initial invitees decline or do not respond. Journals that ask for four or five reviewers for a single paper face compounding delays at this stage because they cannot proceed until a sufficient number have agreed.
Review Period
Once reviewers agree to evaluate a manuscript, they are typically given a deadline. Surveys of authors suggest that journals commonly allow reviewers three to four weeks to complete their reports, though deadlines range from two weeks at fast-turnaround journals to six or eight weeks at some specialty publications.
The key variable is whether reviewers complete their reports on time. Late reports are extremely common. Peer review is voluntary in most cases, and reviewers are themselves researchers with their own publication pressures, teaching loads, and service commitments. A single late reviewer can hold up a decision for weeks; editors must decide at some point whether to proceed with the reports in hand, seek an additional reviewer, or wait.
All in all, the first-round review period, from submission to initial decision, ranges from approximately six weeks at journals that actively manage their reviewer pools to six months or more at journals where editorial capacity is thin or reviewer availability is constrained by the size of the specialist community. The section on field-by-field data below puts measured numbers on this range.
Editorial Decision
After receiving reviewer reports, the editor synthesizes the feedback and issues a decision: accept, accept with minor revisions, major revisions, or reject. This step typically adds one to two weeks to the total, though at journals where senior editors are overburdened or where editorial board consultation is required, it can take longer.
Revision and Resubmission
If the decision is a request for revisions, the most common outcome for manuscripts that survive desk review, the author must revise the manuscript and prepare a detailed response to reviewer comments. The time allowed for revision varies; journals commonly report allowing sixty to ninety days for major revisions, with shorter windows for minor ones.
A revised manuscript typically goes through at least one additional review round. Journals may send the revision to the original reviewers, to new reviewers, or, in the case of minor revisions, handle it editorially. Each additional round adds further time to the overall timeline.
Production and Publication
Once a manuscript is accepted, it enters production: copyediting, typesetting, proofreading, and online posting. For journals that publish continuously, this can take as little as two to four weeks. For journals that batch content into issues, it may take several months before the final formatted version is published, though most journals now post accepted manuscripts online ahead of issue publication as "ahead-of-print" or "early view" records that are citable as soon as they appear.
What the Data Shows: Peer Review Times by Field
General ranges are useful; measured data is better. The largest published study of peer review duration from the author's side is Huisman and Smits (2017), which analyzed about 3,500 review experiences reported by researchers on the SciRev platform between 2013 and 2016, published in Scientometrics. Across all fields, the mean time from submission to a first decision was about 13 weeks. The field you work in changes that number dramatically:
| Field | First decision (mean) | Decided within 1 month | Full review, accepted papers (mean) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medicine | 8 weeks | 28% | 12 weeks |
| Public health | 9 weeks | 27% | 13 weeks |
| Natural sciences | 11 weeks | 25% | 14 weeks |
| Engineering | 13 weeks | 21% | 17 weeks |
| Psychology | 14 weeks | 11% | 20 weeks |
| Humanities | 16 weeks | 7% | not reported |
| Mathematics and computer science | 17 weeks | 11% | 22 weeks |
| Social sciences | 17 weeks | 8% | 23 weeks |
| Economics and business | 18 weeks | 10% | 25 weeks |
Three further findings from the same dataset are worth knowing. Desk rejections were fast: 12 days on average, with half arriving within a week, so a very quick rejection usually means the paper never reached external reviewers. Rejected manuscripts waited about four weeks longer for a first decision, on average, than accepted ones. And authors themselves took an average of 39 days to return a revised manuscript, so author-side time is a real share of the total.
For researchers in the social sciences and humanities, the disciplines our largest journal serves, the message is plain: at the average journal in these fields a first decision takes about four months, and fewer than one paper in ten receives a decision within a month. Building that expectation into publication planning, for example around a thesis deadline or a hiring cycle, prevents unpleasant surprises.
What Journals Report About Their Own Speed
Many publishers now publish measured processing times. These figures are self-reported, but they come from complete submission records rather than author surveys, and they are updated annually. The figures below are the publishers' own reported numbers for 2025:
| Journal or publisher | Time to first decision | Submission to acceptance or publication |
|---|---|---|
| Nature | 8 days (median, editorial decision) | 321 days to acceptance |
| Nature Communications | 9 days (median, editorial decision) | 242 days to acceptance |
| PLOS ONE | 32 days (median) | 209 days to publication |
| PLOS Medicine | 67 days (median) | 236 days to publication |
| MDPI (all journals) | 19 days (average) | 42 days to publication |
| Frontiers | about 90 days (average, to final decision) | not separately reported |
Sources: Nature Portfolio journal metrics, PLOS research metrics, MDPI's reported 2025 averages, and Frontiers' author information. Elsevier publishes equivalent per-journal figures on each journal's Journal Insights page, and many Springer journals list submission-to-decision times on their homepages.
Read this table with one large caveat: publishers define "first decision" differently. Nature's 8-day figure is the median time to a first editorial decision, meaning the decision about whether to send the paper to reviewers at all, not the outcome of review; its post-review reality is measured in months, as the 321-day acceptance median shows. PLOS and MDPI report the first decision that follows review. A 9-day figure and a 32-day figure therefore describe different events and cannot be compared directly. When a journal advertises its speed, check what the metric covers and whether desk rejections are included in the average before letting it influence where you submit.
What Slows Peer Review
Knowing the general timeline is useful; understanding what stretches it beyond that range is more actionable.
- Reviewer scarcity. In highly specialized subfields, the pool of qualified reviewers who do not have conflicts with the authors may be very small. Editors must sometimes approach many potential reviewers before assembling a panel.
- Reviewer decline rates. Survey data suggest that editors routinely receive decline rates of 40-60% or higher when recruiting reviewers, meaning they must invite roughly twice as many as they expect to recruit.
- Manuscript complexity. Papers that span multiple subfields, use unfamiliar methodologies, or include large datasets or complex supplementary materials require reviewers with unusual breadth, making recruitment harder and the review itself more time-consuming.
- Editorial bottlenecks. Journals with small editorial teams, or journals where a single editor handles a disproportionate share of the volume, can develop backlogs that add weeks to every stage of the process.
- Submission volume spikes. Many journals experience seasonal submission peaks that correspond to academic calendars. Papers submitted at peak times enter longer queues at every stage.
- Author response delays. When an author takes the full allowed time for revision, or exceeds it, the total timeline extends accordingly.
What Authors Can Control
Authors often feel that peer review timelines are entirely out of their hands. That is not quite accurate. Several decisions by authors materially affect the speed of the process.
Choose the right journal before submitting
Submitting to a journal whose scope does not fit the manuscript practically guarantees either a desk rejection or a slow review by reviewers who are not optimally positioned to evaluate the work. Careful pre-submission scope matching is one of the highest-value investments an author can make. Reviewing recent published papers in the target journal, reading the stated scope carefully, and emailing the editorial office with a pre-submission inquiry when in doubt all help ensure the manuscript goes to a journal where it will be taken seriously.
Write a strong cover letter
Cover letters that clearly articulate the paper's contribution, identify the paper's target audience, and, importantly, suggest appropriate reviewers give editors the information they need to move efficiently. Many journals invite reviewer suggestions; a thoughtful list of genuine experts (outside the authors' immediate institutional network) can meaningfully accelerate the recruitment stage.
Respond to revisions promptly and completely
Authors who return revised manuscripts quickly, with thorough and clearly organized responses to reviewer comments, remove themselves as a source of delay. More importantly, a thorough response letter reduces the likelihood of an additional review round by making it easy for reviewers and editors to confirm that each concern has been addressed.
Follow instructions precisely
Manuscripts that do not comply with a journal's formatting, ethics statement, and data availability requirements are frequently returned before review, sometimes with a request to resubmit, which resets the timeline entirely. Reading the author guidelines before submission is not optional; it is one of the most direct ways to avoid delays.
How to Read a Journal's Stated Process
Most journals publish some description of their peer review model, often under headings like "editorial policy," "for authors," or "review process." When evaluating this information, look for:
- Stated decision timelines. Some journals publish average or target times to first decision. These figures, when available, are more informative than general promises about "rapid review."
- Number of reviewers. Journals that use two reviewers typically move faster than those requiring three or more, because fewer reviewer slots must be filled.
- Review model. Single-blind, double-blind, and open review processes have different logistics; some evidence suggests that double-blind review takes slightly longer on average because the anonymization process adds steps.
- Revision policy. Journals that commit to returning a revised manuscript to original reviewers (rather than making an editorial decision) will require additional time for revisions.
- Published speed metrics. Many large publishers now publish measured processing times each year; the comparison table earlier in this article shows 2025 figures and explains why the definitions behind them differ.
For a detailed explanation of how the peer review process is structured at Boston Research Journals, see the BRJ peer review process page. Information specifically for those serving as reviewers is available on the peer reviewers page.
Questions to Ask Before Submitting
Before committing a manuscript to a journal, authors benefit from asking the following questions, either by reviewing publicly available information or, where appropriate, by contacting the editorial office:
- What is the journal's average or target time to first decision?
- Does the journal use a single-stage or multi-stage review, and how many reviewers are typically involved?
- Does the journal offer any expedited review pathway, and what are the conditions for eligibility?
- What is the journal's revision policy? Will revisions be reviewed by original reviewers?
- Does the journal post accepted manuscripts online ahead of formal issue publication?
Answers to these questions, combined with an honest assessment of scope fit, will generally allow an author to identify journals where the manuscript has a real chance of timely and fair review.
If you have additional questions about the submission process, the BRJ FAQ page addresses common author queries.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does peer review take on average?
About 13 weeks from submission to first decision, averaged across all fields, based on roughly 3,500 author-reported review experiences analyzed by Huisman and Smits (2017). Medicine is fastest at about 8 weeks; economics and business are slowest at about 18 weeks. For accepted papers, the full process through all review rounds averaged 17 weeks.
Why does peer review take so long?
Two stages dominate the timeline. Editors must first recruit qualified reviewers, and decline rates of 40-60% mean many invitations per paper. The reviewers who accept are unpaid volunteers with their own workloads, and late reports are common. Editorial backlogs, specialist topics with small reviewer pools, and slow author revisions add further time.
When should I contact the journal about a delayed review?
Check the journal's stated time to first decision first. A polite status inquiry is reasonable once that stated timeline has passed, or after three to four months of silence at a journal that states none. Write to the editorial office, include your manuscript ID, and ask for an expected decision date rather than an immediate decision.
Does a long review mean my paper will be rejected?
Not reliably. Rejected manuscripts did wait about four weeks longer for a first decision than accepted ones in the Huisman and Smits dataset, but variation between journals and fields is far larger than that difference, so the length of a review says little about the outcome for any single paper.
What does a very fast desk rejection mean?
Desk rejections averaged 12 days in the same study, and half arrived within one week. A fast rejection almost always means an editor judged the paper out of scope or not competitive before it reached external reviewers. It costs the least time of any outcome, and the productive response is to submit promptly to a better-fitting journal.
Which fields have the fastest and slowest peer review?
Medicine, public health and the natural sciences are fastest, with first decisions in 8 to 11 weeks on average. Mathematics and computer science, the social sciences, and economics and business are slowest, at 17 to 18 weeks. The main drivers are the size of the qualified reviewer pool and field norms about review depth.
Publish with Boston Research Journals
Understanding peer review timelines is one part of navigating the publication process effectively. When you are ready to submit, Boston Research Journals offers a structured, transparent review process across seven disciplinary areas. Submit your manuscript to BRJ to get started.