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 which they can publish and disseminate their findings; and which helps to ensure that they perform to best standards by subjecting those findings to rigorous peer review. It is critically important that in introducing any changes to the ecology, we do not put those key features at risk.

6.24. Learned societies play a significant role in that ecology in the UK, more important than in most other countries. Their central aim is to foster and promote the specific disciplines or subjects they represent, in three key ways: first, by facilitating two-way communication and engagement between researchers, policy-makers, practitioners, and the public at large; second, by nurturing researchers with opportunities for professional development and guidance at key stages in their careers; and third, by fostering a sense of professional collegiality and promoting good practice. Publishing and communicating the results of research are core to the missions of most learned societies, and they publish journals to meet the goal of disseminating high-quality research as widely as possible. Many of the journals published by UK learned societies are among the leading journals in their fields worldwide. They also play a key role in sustaining the level of societies’ core activities, and that is of vital importance.

6.25. Quality assurance through peer review is enshrined in our terms of reference; and we believe that it is critically important to the users of research—both in the research community and in society at large—that published findings from whatever source, in the UK or worldwide, should be subject to peer review. Otherwise there is the risk that faulty or mistaken results can achieve currency, with damaging consequences. The risks can be especially severe in areas of research where findings may affect health and safety in the population at large.

6.26. Peer review is sometimes characterised an imperfect mechanism: it can take a long time and delay the publication of important results; it provides scant rewards for the efforts that researchers—hard-pressed for other purposes—devote to good reviewing; and since it depends on fallible human beings it cannot provide an absolute guarantee against the publication of faulty results. But most researchers regard peer review as overwhelmingly more reliable than other forms of review; and the principle that research publications should be subject before publication to rigorous review by expert peers—whether simply to check the rigour of the research or to assess its significance and likely impact in the field—is of critical importance. It becomes even more important as wider access to research-based publications leads to wider use by non-experts, who must have confidence in the quality assurance of the publication process, if they are to rely on the findings.

6.27. Nevertheless, it is important also to distinguish between the principle of peer review and the various ways in which it operates, with different degrees of openness and transparency. A number of approaches have been proposed, and