Reimagining Peer Review Process Through Multi-Agent Mechanism Design

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Farooq, Ahmad, Iqbal, Kamran
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Farooq, Ahmad
Iqbal, Kamran
author_facet Farooq, Ahmad
Iqbal, Kamran
contents The software engineering research community faces a systemic crisis: peer review is failing under growing submissions, misaligned incentives, and reviewer fatigue. Community surveys reveal that researchers perceive the process as "broken." This position paper argues that these dysfunctions are mechanism design failures amenable to computational solutions. We propose modeling the research community as a stochastic multi-agent system and applying multi-agent reinforcement learning to design incentive-compatible protocols. We outline three interventions: a credit-based submission economy, MARL-optimized reviewer assignment, and hybrid verification of review consistency. We present threat models, equity considerations, and phased pilot metrics. This vision charts a research agenda toward sustainable peer review.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_19778
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Reimagining Peer Review Process Through Multi-Agent Mechanism Design
Farooq, Ahmad
Iqbal, Kamran
Multiagent Systems
Artificial Intelligence
Computers and Society
Computer Science and Game Theory
Software Engineering
68T42, 91B26
I.2.11; D.2.9; J.4
The software engineering research community faces a systemic crisis: peer review is failing under growing submissions, misaligned incentives, and reviewer fatigue. Community surveys reveal that researchers perceive the process as "broken." This position paper argues that these dysfunctions are mechanism design failures amenable to computational solutions. We propose modeling the research community as a stochastic multi-agent system and applying multi-agent reinforcement learning to design incentive-compatible protocols. We outline three interventions: a credit-based submission economy, MARL-optimized reviewer assignment, and hybrid verification of review consistency. We present threat models, equity considerations, and phased pilot metrics. This vision charts a research agenda toward sustainable peer review.
title Reimagining Peer Review Process Through Multi-Agent Mechanism Design
topic Multiagent Systems
Artificial Intelligence
Computers and Society
Computer Science and Game Theory
Software Engineering
68T42, 91B26
I.2.11; D.2.9; J.4
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.19778