“This is one of the basic elements in making science work, as there would be no articles published in scientific journals and periodicals at all if nobody undertook the ordeal of writing peer reviews,” said Szilárd Szabó. The Head of the Department of Physical Geography and Geoinformatics of the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of Debrecen wrote reviews on 29 articles for 17 scientific journals between October 1, 2015, and September 17, 2016.

With this result, he got ranked third among Hungarian peer reviewers in the listing published by the site called Publons, in a time period when the highest number of reviews were submitted from Hungary of all countries.

“I received a lot of requests for reviews in that specific time period, which resulted in the third place on the list. Although some researchers are not fond of undertaking tasks of this sort, I enjoy reviewing articles. Through this means, I can learn about the latest research findings in my particular field of science on the one hand, while on the other hand, I consider this activity an important mission, as it is the reviews and the consequent newer and newer publications that ensure progress in science,” said Department Head Szabó, who is also a full professor.

Representing our university, several other reviewers have made it to the “Top 10% in each field” of the Publons list, including Péter Török in the field of Enviromental Science, Orsolya Valkó in the field of Agricultural and Biological Sciences, and Sándor Gonda in the field of Chemistry.

Among Hungarian institutions of higher education, the University of Debrecen has been ranked third behind ELTE [Eötvös Lóránd University] and BME [Budapest University of Technology and Economics] of Budapest.

Press Office