Journal policy
Submissions from Editors and Editorial Board Members
Editors and board members receive no preferential treatment and are fully excluded from handling their own or otherwise conflicted manuscripts.
Automatic recusal
- An editor who is an author, collaborator, supervisor, trainee, close institutional colleague or otherwise conflicted is recused automatically.
- The recused person has no role in reviewer selection, correspondence, internal discussion or the decision.
- The recused person must not access confidential workflow records, reviewer identities, internal notes or audit history for the manuscript.
Independent handling
A non-conflicted handling editor is assigned. A submission involving the Editor-in-Chief is handled by an external independent academic editor or another senior editor designated by the publisher who has not participated in the work. The independent editor controls reviewer selection and the decision.
Published disclosure
The published article identifies the independent academic or handling editor and contains a disclosure when an author is a member of the journal editorial team.
Endogeny monitoring
The journal monitors the proportion of articles authored by editors, board members and regular reviewers. Editorial affiliation does not alter acceptance criteria or peer-review requirements.
Questions or concerns
Use the appropriate secure route when a matter requires a documented response.