After editorial screening, all manuscripts submitted to the journal undergo double-blind peer review. Screening takes five days and peer review 23 days (three days to respond to the invitation, 20 days for the report); the author receives the first decision no later than four weeks after submission.
Stages
- Submission. The manuscript is submitted through the journal’s website as an anonymized main text together with a separate title page.
- Editorial screening (5 days). The editor checks scope and format, anonymization, the similarity report and the presence of the mandatory sections. A manuscript that does not meet the requirements is desk-rejected with reasons or returned to the author for correction.
- Peer review (23 days). The manuscript is sent to two reviewers. Reviewers respond to the invitation within three days and send their reports within 20 days; they receive a reminder after two weeks.
- Editorial decision (by week 4 at the latest). The decision may be accept, minor revisions, major revisions or reject. It is sent to the author together with the reviewer reports.
- Revision. The author submits the revised text with a response letter explaining every change. The deadline is two weeks for minor revisions and six weeks for major revisions. The revised text is sent to the same reviewers. There are no more than two rounds of revision.
- Acceptance and publication. The accepted manuscript undergoes language, format and layout checks, the copyright and licence agreement is obtained from the authors, and the article is published with a DOI.
Timeline
| Stage | Duration |
|---|---|
| Editorial screening | 5 days |
| Peer review | 23 days: 3 days to respond, 20 days for the report (reminder in week 2) |
| First decision | No later than 4 weeks after submission |
| Minor revisions (author) | 2 weeks |
| Major revisions (author) | 6 weeks |
| Review of the revised text | 2 weeks |
Screening criteria
- Fit with the journal's aims and scope
- Formal compliance with the author guidelines and the article template
- Anonymization of the main text for blind review
- Similarity check (iThenticate): if overall similarity excluding references exceeds 15% or similarity with a single source exceeds 5%, the editor examines the text in detail
- Presence of the "Implications for Practice" and "Data and Code Availability" sections
- A statement of ethics committee approval, or the reason no approval was required
Reviewer selection
Two reviewers are assigned to each manuscript, and care is taken that the two reviewers come from different institutions. Anyone who works at the same institution as the author, has co-authored with the author in the last three years or has a supervisory relationship with the author cannot serve as a reviewer. For "From the Field" papers, one reviewer is a practitioner working in the relevant field. Reviewers' responsibilities are set out in the Reviewer Guidelines. Reviewer reports are kept for at least five years after publication.
Decision
If reviewer reports conflict, the Editor-in-Chief appoints a third reviewer or consults the relevant section editor. The Editor-in-Chief makes the final publication decision. The reasons for the decision are communicated clearly to the author.
Manuscripts by editors and board members
Manuscripts submitted by the Editor-in-Chief are handled by a section editor with no conflict of interest with the Editor-in-Chief. Manuscripts by section editors are assigned to an editor with no conflict of interest with them. An editor who is an author has no access to the review information for their own manuscript at any stage. In any single issue, articles by editorial board members may not exceed 20% of the total.