During the last 2 years, more than 590 articles were submitted to the Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society (JKNS). The editorial office of the JKNS investigated the records regarding who had served as reviewers for the JKNS in 2021 and 2022. From January 1, 2021 to December 2, 2022, a total of 539 requests to review articles were sent to 206 reviewers. Of these, 403 review requests were completed, accounting for 74.8% of the total requests. The average duration of the first review was 14.9±11.6 days (Fig. 1), slightly longer than in 2020 (10.5±4.8 days) [2].

One of the concerns is the delayed review. In the case of the first review, most reviewers completed within the set time (14 days), although there are some outliers, considerably delayed the completion of the review cycle. When the reviewers were divided into two groups, those who completed their review within the set time were categorized as “fast reviewers”, and those who completed their review after the set time were categorized as “slow reviewers”. Although fast reviewers tended to request more articles than slow reviewers, the difference was not significant (Table 1). Among the reviewers, those who reviewed a particularly large number of papers and faithfully commented on their requests were selected as the JKNS best reviewers in 2021 and 2022 consistent with previously years [2]. We have introduced the reviewers below with our honor (Fig. 2).

The other concern is the relatively low proportion of foreign reviewers. JKNS is a journal of international reputation, with about a quarter of published articles by authors outside of Korea, the number of the foreign reviewers who served as reviewers for JKNS were small. Request for foreign reviewers were completed in 12 out of 13, whereas for domestic reviewers 187 out of 193. The reviewers who reviewed the most articles were 13 domestic reviewers and five overseas reviewers. More efforts are required to recruit ‘active’ foreign reviewers and motivate them to participate more often in the review process.

Since the publication of the first issue in October 1972, JKNS has developed from a domestic journal to an internationally recognized journal that is listed in the science citation index and its impact factor has been steadily rising in recent years. This achievements would not be possible without the efforts of all of the members of Korean Neurosurgical Society (KNS) [3]. The review process needs to be improved if JKNS is to keep up with the progress it has made so far. In order to maintain the upward trend of the impact factor so far. It is important to select editors and reviewers who can accurately evaluate manuscripts. As the field of neurosurgery is diversifying, careful attention is needed in selecting the appropriate reviewer for the manuscript. In addition to the number of reviews and the time taken for the review, it is also necessary to seek ways to evaluate the quality of manuscript reviews.

Considering the status of JKNS, constructive evaluation by the reviewers is of utmost importance as well as the selection of appropriate reviewers. Compared to top-class academic journals, manuscripts submitted to JKNS are likely to have some shortcomings. In order to compensate the weaknesses of these manuscripts, it is most important to improve the article through constructive evaluation by the reviewers. This is why JKNS pays attention to the review process and expresses its gratitude to outstanding reviewers through the editorial in regular interval [1,2]. As mentioned in the previous editorials, The editorial board of JKNS is deeply grateful to those who were selected as the best reviewers this time. The list is arranged in alphabetical according to the reviewers’ last names (Fig. 2).

In addition to improving the review system and adding new reviewers, it is also necessary to consider how to provide appropriate advantages to reviewers who contribute to the development of JKNS.