Hi all, It appears that a note has been added to Biermann et al. 2022 regarding an editorial conflict of interest: https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.835
Content of note copied below: Wiley received a letter regarding a potential conflict of interest present in the review and publication of: “Solar geoengineering: The case for an international non-use agreement,” by Biermann, F., et al. in *WIREs Climate Change*, 13(3), e754. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.754. In response to this concern, Wiley's Integrity in Publishing Group undertook an independent investigation to consider whether the peer review process adhered to the journal's policy of impartiality in peer review and to assess any potential conflict of interest. The investigation found that there was a conflict of interest present in the peer review process. As a result, we have decided to amend the publication record with this Article Note for transparency, which we believe will be of value to the reader to view the published article in its full context. The investigation confirmed that: - Solar geoengineering or solar radiation management, the subject of the article, is a heavily debated and highly publicized topic in the fields of climate change and engineering. - An earlier version of this article was rejected by another journal. Professor Mike Hulme, the Editor-in-Chief of *WIREs Climate Change* and the handling editor of the article, was a co-author of that earlier manuscript. The author group decided to expand the manuscript for submission to *WIREs Climate Change* as a Perspective article. Professor Hulme withdrew from the author group and was not involved in the development of this new manuscript. - The article is a Perspective, an article category in WIREs that “may be deliberately provocative or twinned with an opposing view to capture the essence of a live debate.” Due to their special nature, the criteria and guidelines for reviewing Perspectives submissions are different from the other review articles published in WIREs: Perspectives do not require a balanced citing of relevant literature capturing all sides of the argument. - Review instructions put emphasis on the clarity of argument and the credibility of the position offered as supported by the cited evidence, and request reviewers not to state whether they agree or not with the opinions stated, but whether they believe these opinions are clearly expressed and well argued. - The original manuscript was sent to four reviewers by Professor Hulme and the revised version was accepted following reviewer recommendations. - Wiley maintains that best practice would have been for Professor Hulme to recuse himself from the peer review process due to his involvement as an author in a previous version of the manuscript. - Following the investigation, Wiley considered the option of further post-publication peer review for the article. After discussion, it was determined that the highly polarized nature of the topic, and the public nature of the debate, meant that the scientific content of the article has already been discussed at length following the article's publication, by experts on both sides of the debate. Therefore, Wiley decided that an additional peer review step was not justified. - Wiley acknowledges that Professor Hulme's author contribution to the earlier version of the article represents a conflict of interest. However, as the authors presented sound conclusions and valid arguments, and taking into consideration the special nature of Perspective articles, we have decided to retain the article in the publication record with the addition of this acknowledgement. We believe that the published article in its current form (with the additional context of this Article Note) makes a significant contribution to the scientific discourse on this important topic. - -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/geoengineering/75c56b30-469c-4dc3-bff0-3017b3c38706n%40googlegroups.com.
