Have we considered a sponsor-based peer-review system? Based on a recent experience, I think it could work well, especially for early career academics like me. It could also help more senior academics get recognition for informal mentoring and reviewing. Here’s what happened…

A senior academic from a completely different field randomly found a preprint of mine last year and suggested I work up a version for the top journal in their discipline. They said to mention to the editor that they support the submission, and also offered to review the paper…