Peer review process

PEER REVIEW PROCESS

All applications are reviewed by the members of the editorial council. The documents that fit the topic of the magazine are assessed by two independent scientific referents who accepted to review the documents and who send their review to the Editor in Chief. The identity of the assessors is not disclosed to the authors.

The reviewers give the Editor in Chief the review form, including comments on the scientific content of the work and the possibility to publish it. The Editor in Chief summarizes the assessors' observations and communicates them to the author.

Considering the opinions of all reviewers, the Editor in Chief decides whether to accept, review or reject the paper. According to the reviewers' recommendations, the manuscript can be accepted, sent back to the author for minor revisions or rejected.

Download peer-review form

DURING THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS

Step 1: Editor assessment

Peer review follows a number of stages:

After submitting your article to RST journal, the journal editor will decide if it’s suitable for the journal, asking questions such as:

the author followed the journal’s guidelines?
Is RST the right journal for this article?

In this step the editor can reject the article if the author did not respect the guidelines or the article it is not proper for this journal.

Otherwise the editor will move to the next stage and start the peer review process.

Stage 2: First round of peer review

The editor will find and contact two researchers or academics who are experts in your field. They will be asked to read your article, and advise the editor whether to publish your paper in the journal.

They will be checking:

If your work is original or new;
If the methodology are described;
If your results are clearly and appropriately;
If your conclusions are significant;
If the work is of a high enough standard to be published in the journal.

After this step, the reviewers will provide comments, suggestions and recommendation (accept, revise or reject).

If there are different opinions between the two reviewers, the editor will sent your article to the 3th reviewer.

Step 3: Revise and resubmit

You can then amend your article based (if the reviewer will request that) on the reviewers’ comments, resubmitting it with any or all changes made. You may be asked to make further revisions or the paper may be rejected if the editor thinks that the revisions you have made are not adequate.

Step 4: Accepted

The peer review process finished and your article will be published.

Step 5: Estimated time of manuscript processing

The average time during which the preliminary assessment of manuscripts is conducted is 100 days.
The average time during which the reviews of manuscripts are conducted is 90 days.
The average time in which the article is published is 120 days.

Find out more about peer review in this guide from Sense about Science