The experience of submitting research manuscripts for review in scientific journals commonly brings about excellent learning opportunities for authors, especially when they are at the beginning of their research careers. Infancia y Aprendizaje invited junior researchers to submit empirical studies for the publication of a special issue titled The peer review process as an opportunity for learning. The present article introduces the special issue. After reviewing several prior works in the field, we present the aims of the call for papers and describe its most relevant guidelines, as well as the criteria used in the preliminary screening of the 31 manuscripts received. We then present the papers that constitute the dossier: an article of the Prospectivas series; the four studies accepted for publication in this call; and finally, an editorial article in which we analyse how these four studies shifted during the peer review process and present some reflections from both authors and reviewers. We are confident that this special issue, along with the materials produced during the peer-review process (visit: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/riya20/37/4 ), will promote the learning of those who participate in the production, dissemination and use of knowledge in social sciences, whether in the capacity of readers, authors, reviewers and/or editors.