About Re-Imagining Peer Review

A Mellon Foundation grant project

CELJ, a project of its fiscal sponsor K|N Consultants, Ltd., has been awarded a grant of $555,000 from the Mellon Foundation to advance equitable and inclusive practices in peer review and scholarly journal publishing within the humanities. This project will survey key stakeholders—editors, authors, peer reviewers, and publishers—to examine peer review models, methods, and experiences, while identifying ways to improve them. Guided by a diverse advisory board, CELJ will release a public dataset and report based on the findings. The project will also develop workshops and toolkits that explore collaborative, inclusive, and open peer-review practices, providing actionable alternatives to traditional double-anonymous models. By aligning peer-review processes with principles of diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI), and knowledge justice, CELJ seeks to reshape scholarly publishing for the humanities.

Project Team

  • Cheryl Ball

    PI, Executive Director of CELJ and Secretary of K|N Consultants, Ltd.

  • Sarah Salter

    Co-PI, Professor of Pedagogy and Director of the Writing Program at Emory University

  • Eugenia Zuroski

    Professor of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University

  • Debra Rae Cohen

    Professor of English Emerita at University of South Carolina

  • Emma Vecellio

    Assistant Project Manager

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