The number of scientific publications is steadily increasing. In 2018, over three million papers were published in over 33,000 journals. Assuming that each of these papers require two peer reviews, this translates to a potential need for roughly 6 million reviewers annually. Furthermore, with the number of submitted papers increasing by 6–8% year-on-year, an estimated 180,000 to 270,000 manuscripts are added to the review pool annually.

These statistics reflect the prodigious amount of work that is being generated in academia every year. While this is indicative of a thriving scientific community and a large number of new discoveries, it also presents a significant challenge — there may not be enough workforce available to manage the entire review process. This shortage could lead to delays in the peer review and publication of manuscripts, causing researchers to feel overburdened by the amount of time they need to spend on the review process.