Publishing peer-review exchanges, in addition, recognizes the effort that goes into the endeavour. Peer review is integral to being a researcher. Making reviewers’ work public illustrates the lengths that researchers will go in the service of scholarship. According to one study, reviewers in total do tens of millions of hours of peer review each year (B. Aczel et alRes. Integr. Peer Rev. 6, 14; 2021). Yet this contribution is rarely recognized in research evaluation systems. As we have reported, there is growing interest in reforming these systems to better represent how science is done. If more researchers agree to open up their peer-review exchanges, we can all play a part in making that happen.