Double-anonymized peer review

A manuscript review model in which neither party can identify the other during review: the reviewer does not know who the author is, and the author does not know who the reviewer is, up to and including the editorial decision. A given review counts as double-anonymized only if both conditions hold - the manuscript file sent to reviewers has been stripped of author names, affiliations, and other directly identifying material, and the editorial system withholds reviewer identity from the author throughout. Withholding only one identity (author-blind but reviewer known, or vice versa) is single-anonymized review, not double.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 16 Jul 2026

Worked examples

Is an instance

A social-science journal collects a title page with author names separately from the manuscript file, sends reviewers only the de-identified manuscript, and never discloses reviewer names to authors at submission, during review, or after the decision.

Is an instance

Since 2015, authors submitting to Nature and the Nature research journals may opt in at submission to double-anonymized review instead of the journal's single-anonymized default; per Springer Nature's own reporting, uptake has stayed under one-fifth of eligible submissions.

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance

A journal that removes the author's name from the reviewer-facing PDF but leaves the submission system's author list visible to reviewers is not double-anonymized: the manuscript file was de-identified, but the platform still discloses author identity, so only one side of the model is actually blind.

Not an instance

A journal that conducts anonymized review but then publishes the reviewer reports (signed or unsigned) alongside the article is practicing open peer review, not double-anonymized review; anonymization during review and openness after publication are independent choices, not the same axis.

Double-anonymized peer review (formerly called “double-blind” review) withholds both the author’s identity from the reviewer and the reviewer’s identity from the author throughout the review process, distinguishing it from the more common single-anonymized default (reviewer identity withheld from the author only) and from open review (identities disclosed to each other, published, or both). It is the prevailing model in much of the social sciences and humanities, and is offered as an author-selectable option alongside a single-anonymized default at journals including Nature and the Nature research journals (since 2015) and RSC’s Chemical Science.

Full anonymization is difficult to guarantee in practice. Self-citations, acknowledgments, funding statements, and identifiable methodology (a named survey instrument, dataset, or field site only one research group uses) can reveal authorship even after a title page is removed, and a manuscript already posted as a preprint defeats reviewer-side anonymization regardless of what the journal strips from the submitted PDF.

In 2020, a working group convened by STM (the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers) recommended replacing “blind”/”blinded” with “anonymized” across peer review terminology industry-wide, on the grounds that the older terms are ableist in origin. “Single-anonymized”/”double-anonymized” are now the recommended terms; “single-blind”/”double-blind” remain in wide use in search queries and on older journal policy pages, and describe the identical practice. For a side-by-side comparison with single-anonymized and open peer review, see CASRAI’s peer review models comparison.

References

STM Association peer review terminology recommendation (2020)
Springer Nature, ‘Introducing double-blind peer review’ (2015 policy announcement)
COPE, ‘Balancing anonymisation and open science during peer review’

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="Double-anonymized peer review"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/double-anonymized-peer-review" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/double-anonymized-peer-review",
  "name": "Double-anonymized peer review",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/double-anonymized-peer-review",
  "description": "A manuscript review model in which neither party can identify the other during review: the reviewer does not know who the author is, and the author does not know who the reviewer is, up to and including the editorial decision. A given review counts as double-anonymized only if both conditions hold - the manuscript file sent to reviewers has been stripped of author names, affiliations, and other directly identifying material, and the editorial system withholds reviewer identity from the author throughout. Withholding only one identity (author-blind but reviewer known, or vice versa) is single-anonymized review, not double.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/research-integrity#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/double-anonymized-peer-review",
  "sameAs": [
    "Double-blind peer review",
    "Double-blind review"
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "dateModified": "2026-07-16T07:40:19",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}