Normally, referees are unpaid. You're just supposed to do your share of referee work. And then the publisher sells the fruits of all that work (research and refereeing) back to universities at a steep price. Academic publishing is one of the most profitable businesses on the planet! But univesities and academics are fighting back. Have been for a few years, but the fight is not yet over.

If unis "win", what is the likely outcome?

More/easier/cheaper dissemination of research.

> Do universities require staff to perform a certain number of reviews in academic journals?

No. Reviewers mostly do it because its expected of them, and they want to publish their own papers so they can get grants

In the end, the university only cares about the grant (money), because they get a cut - somewhere between 30-70% depending on the instituition/field - for "overhead"

Its like the mafia - everyone has a boss they kick up to.

My old boss (PI on an RO1) explained it like this

Ideas -> Grant -> Money -> Equipment/Personnel -> Experiments -> Data -> Paper -> Submit/Review/Publish (hopefully) -> Ideas -> Grant

If you don't review, go to conferences/etc. its much less likely your own papers will get published, and you won't get approved for grants.

Sadly there is still a bit of "junior high popularity contest" , scratch my back I'll scratch yours that is still present in even "highly respected" science journals.

I hear this from basically every scientist I've known. Even successful ones - not just the marginal ones.

While most of what you write is true to some extend, I do not see how reviewing will get your paper published, except maybe for the cases the authors can guess the reviewer. It's anonymous normally.

The editor does though, they all know each other. They would know who's not refereeing - and word gets around.

I don't thing it's a money problem. It's more like a framing issue, with some reviewers being too narrow-minded, or lacking background knowledge on the topic of the paper. It's not uncommon to have a full lab with people focussing on very different things, when you look in the details, the exact researchers interests don't overlap too much.

Typically, at least in physics (but as far as I know in all sciences), it's not compensated, and the reviewers are anonymous. Some journals try to change this, with some "reviewer coins", or Nature, which now publishes reviewer names if a paper is accepted and if the reviewer agrees. I think these are bad ideas.

Professors are expected to review by their employer, typically, and it's a (very small) part of the tenure process.

It's implicitly understood that volunteer work makes the publishing process 'work'. It's supposed to be a level playing field where money does not matter.

Do universities require staff to perform a certain number of reviews in academic journals?

Depends on what you mean by "require". At most research universities it is a plus when reviewing tenureship files, bonuses, etc. It is a sign that someone cares about your work, and the quality of the journal seeking your review matters. If it were otherwise faculty wouldn't list the journals they have reviewed for on their CVs. If no one would ever find out about a reviewers' efforts e.g. the process were double blind to everyone involved, the setup wouldnt work.

There is no compensation for reviewers, and usually no compensation for editors. It’s effectively volunteer work. I agree to review a paper if it seems interesting to me and I want to effectively force myself to read it a lot more carefully than normal. It’s hard work, especially if there is a problem with the paper, because you have to dig out the problem and explain it clearly. An academic could refuse to do any reviews with essentially no formal consequences, although they’d get a reputation as a “bad citizen” of some kind.

I know from some of my peers that reviewed biology (genetics) papers, they weren’t compensated.

I was approached to review something for no compensation as well, but I was a bad fit.