Academic criticises reviewers after five-year delay to paper

The editors of the EMBO Journals were glad to be able to publish the paper - the process was in our view efficient, including a single round of revision. All the details are documented in the Transparent Process review file that we publish with most papers: http://emboj.embopress.org/content/embojnl/early/2016/11/09/embj.201694264.reviewer-comments.pdf. For data and approaches that raise discussion among experts, in our experience the EMBO Press cross-referee commenting process works extremely well: all referees see each other’s reports before a decision is made and often comment on specific issues they agree or disagree with, allowing the editors to make a more nuanced and informed decision. Where appropriate, we also approach the authors before an editorial decision is made to take into account their take on the referee reports. It is also interesting to note that the article past posted one year earlier as a preprint on bioRxiv - this helps get information shared earlier and often yields feedback from the community to allow revision before formal submission at the journal. Bernd Pulverer, Chief Editor, the EMBO Journal