Who reviews for interdisciplinary research? A Study based on Active Reviewers from Publons

The increasing importance of interdisciplinary research presents challenges in evaluating the quality of such research, and the urgency for academic journals to select appropriate interdisciplinary reviewers. We conducted a study examing the research, reviewing, and editorial activities of top reviewers in the Cross-field category (abbreviated as active interdisciplinary reviewers) provided by Publons. Our findings indicate that active interdisciplinary reviewers are often highly interdisciplinary researchers, and a significant correlation between the interdisciplinarity of their research and reviewing activities reinforces this observation. Moderately experienced reviewers are the primary force behind interdisciplinary reviewing, and senior reviewers with longer research and reviewing experience are particularly advantageous for studies with knowledge across multiple disciplines. Based on our results, we recommend prioritizing reviewers for interdisciplinary research who demonstrate higher interdisciplinarity in both research and reviewing activities, as they may have better reviewing performance.