Reviewing in science requires quality criteria and professional reviewers.

The use of peers to assess the work of scientists goes back to the 17th century and finally led to what we call peer review (Kronick, 1990) or review by competitors (Roy and Ashburn, 2001). Usually peers are external experts not paid for their assessment. Recent studies of the effectiveness and quality of our current peer review system are not reassuring (Godlee and Jefferson, 1999; Jefferson et al., 2002a, b). The continued use rather results from the lack of a serious alternative than from its actual value (Young, 2003). The purpose of our editorial is to address the problems brought up by peer review and their requirements for higher quality. We propose professional reviewing as an alternative to be tested.