Let’s make a collective New Year’s resolution: We will review more papers!!

Well, it’s January 1^st. An old year is behind us, and a new year is ahead of us. Many of us have made various New Year’s resolutions, and most of them are probably dealing with our lifestyles (e.g., eat healthy, exercise more, and similar resolutions that will last until the second week of January). In the spirit of holidays, I would like to propose that we all make a collective New Year’s resolution. It’s a simple resolution. We promise that we will review more papers (and/or grants).

You may be surprised by the proposed resolution, but it’s a serious resolution. Peer review is one of the fundamental, although unpaid, services that we provide to the society, not just the IEEE Signal Processing Society. Many of us review even for clinical journals, and think about those life-changing treatments that will appear in the literature if we do our jobs properly. Hence, peer review is an important service. Yet, many of us seldomly complete it.

Having editorial roles for several journals, I can attest that attracting reliable, good quality reviews is very difficult. I understand that all of our schedules are packed with a variety of tasks, but please, don’t ignore a peer review process. We need your input! We need your wisdom! We need your experience! We’re all collectively the gait keepers, and we should be proud of our roles.

Happy New Year!!