Peer Review & Editorial Decision-Making

Editorial process

A submission may pass through administrative checks, preliminary editorial assessment, ethical and integrity screening, reviewer selection, external review, revision, decision, production and, where necessary, appeal or reconsideration. Receipt of a manuscript does not imply that it has entered peer review or will be accepted.

Editors may decline submissions before external review when they are clearly outside scope, methodologically unsuitable, ethically unacceptable, insufficiently original, inadequately reported or affected by a serious unresolved integrity concern.

Review model

Each journal should state its peer-review identity model using clear, standard terminology and should explain what information is visible to authors, reviewers and editors. A journal must not describe a review model that does not correspond with its technical configuration and routine practice.

Anonymity can be supported but cannot always be guaranteed, especially where preprints, registrations, distinctive settings or self-citations make identity inferable.

Reviewer selection and verification

Reviewers should be chosen for relevant expertise, independence, experience, availability and capacity to provide a fair assessment. Author-suggested reviewers may be considered but are subject to the same verification and conflict checks as other reviewers.

Where there is reason to suspect impersonation, false reviewer details, compromised accounts or a coordinated peer-review ring, the review process should be suspended and any compromised review should not be relied upon.

Reviewer conduct and confidentiality

Submitted manuscripts and associated files are confidential. Reviewers must not share or exploit unpublished material, attempt to influence authors directly, or upload protected manuscript content to unauthorised public generative-AI systems.

A review should provide reasoned scholarly assessment rather than only a recommendation. Reviewers should distinguish essential revisions from optional suggestions and should not demand unnecessary citations, analyses or experiments for personal advantage.

Co-reviewing

A reviewer who wishes to involve another person should follow the journal’s declared co-reviewing procedure. The additional participant should be disclosed, appropriately supervised and bound by equivalent confidentiality and conflict requirements.

Editorial use of reviews

Reviewer recommendations are advisory. Editors should evaluate reports for relevance, professionalism, conflicts, evidential support and consistency. Conflicting reports may justify additional review, clarification or senior editorial consultation.

Abusive, discriminatory, irrelevant, coercive or conflicted review material may be disregarded or edited to remove inappropriate content, provided the substantive scholarly assessment is not silently distorted.

Decisions and revisions

Common decisions include acceptance, minor revision, major revision and rejection. An invitation to revise is not a guarantee of acceptance. Authors should respond to substantive comments in a structured manner and may explain respectfully why a requested change is inappropriate or unsupported.

Revised manuscripts may be assessed by the editor, returned to original reviewers or sent to new reviewers depending on the nature and extent of changes.

Appeals and exceptions

A journal should provide an accessible route for appeals based on material factual misunderstanding, procedural irregularity, unmanaged conflict, discriminatory conduct or significant new information. An appeal is not an automatic second round of peer review and does not create a right to acceptance.

Editorials, corrections, retractions, invited commentaries or other non-research content may follow different review processes, but any material difference should be disclosed where readers would reasonably need to know.