Refereeing or peer-reviewing is a process to ensure quality of academic work at higher education institutions, whether it be in the form of academic publications, PhD dissertations or it is in the form of scrutinizing quality of research projects for grant distribution or evaluation of faculty’s dossiers for their selection and promotion. The process necessitates that blind peer reviewers give an unbiased, informed and academic assessment of a candidates’ scholarly contributions to significantly contribute to the relevant field or discipline. 

Keeping the same spirit alive, Sargodha University centralized the process to make it as transparent and fair as possible, and, initiated to revise altogether, the foreign and local referees’ lists across all disciplines offered at university with an intent to keep the evaluation process free from favoritism, malpractices and partiality. To achieve the objective, professors, associate professors and assistant professors from top 500 universities of QS ranking were approached for their informed consent for the evaluation of the faculty dossiers and PhD dissertations. 

The universities from USA, Harvard University, Columbia University, Penn State University, Michigan State University, The Ohio State University, Purdue University, Oklahoma State University, University of Florida, University of Texas, University of Illinios, University of Massachusetts, University of Washington, University of Georgia, Oregon State University, University of Pittsburgh, University of California, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of North Carolina, The University of Chicago, the universities from Australia, Monash University, Australian National University, Charles Sturt University, University of Melbourne, University of Western Australia, the universities from Canada, University of British Columbia, McGill University, University of Toronto, University of Calgary, and University of Alberta, the universities from UK, University of Oxford, University of Reading, University of Leicester, University of Liverpool, University of Birmingham, University College London, University of Leeds, Durham University, Queen Mary University of London, University of Edinburgh, University of Lancaster, University of Glasgow, and The University of Manchester, the universities from France, University of Strasbourg, University of Grenoble Alpes, and Normandy University, the universities from Germany, George August University, Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, Justus-Liebig University, and University of Giessen, the universities from Turkey, Safranbulu-karabuk University, and Hacettepe University, the universities from China, China Agricultural University, Lanzhou University, and Tsinghua University, the universities from Singapore, National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, the universities from New Zealand, The University of Auckland, Massey University, and University of Canterbury, the universities from Italy, University of Bologna, the universities from Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and University of Hong Kong, the universities from Malaysia, University of Malaya, International Islamic University and University Sains Malaysia, the universities from South Korea, Seoul National University, and the universities from Netherlands, University of Amsterdam were included. Apart from these, professors from other top-ranked universities were also included in foreign referees lists. 

 
The fields/disciplines in which the professors consented us are agriculture, food and nutrition, medical, health and pharmaceutical sciences, computer, engineering and information technology, physics, mathematics and statistics, chemical and biological sciences, earth sciences, language and linguistics, business, commerce, oriental languages and social sciences.

Nearly 756 reviewers from approximately 340 universities of almost 31 countries across globe extended cooperation and offered consent to review faculty dossiers and research dissertations at Sargodha University. The finalized list of foreign reviewers included almost 167 referees from agriculture, food and nutrition, 217 from science and technology, 44 from pharmacology, 142 from social sciences, and 196 reviewers from art and humanities. This undaunted task has proven to be one of the giant leaps for ensuring impartiality, transparency and fairness in the evaluation process. The university shall keep striving for such endeavors to uplift the academic and research standards to bring them at par with the international educational standards across the globe.