These guidelines apply to the Editor-in-Chief, associate or section editors, handling editors, managing editors, guest editors, and any other editorial personnel involved in manuscript handling.
Editorial Responsibility
Editors are accountable for the integrity, quality, fairness, consistency, and timeliness of the editorial process. Editors should take reasonable steps to ensure that what is published in the journal meets the journal’s scholarly and ethical standards.
Editorial Independence
Editorial decisions must be made independently and must not be influenced by the publisher, owners, sponsors, advertisers, institutional pressure, political interests, commercial interests, or personal relationships.
Fair and Unbiased Evaluation
Editors must evaluate manuscripts on scholarly merit, relevance, originality, methodological quality, ethical compliance, and clarity. Decisions must not be influenced by authors’ nationality, ethnicity, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, political belief, institutional affiliation, seniority, or other irrelevant personal characteristics.
Confidentiality
Editors must treat manuscripts, reviewer identities where protected, reports, correspondence, and supporting documentation as confidential. Confidential materials must not be used for personal advantage.
Conflicts of Interest
Editors must recuse themselves from handling any manuscript where they have an actual, potential, or perceived conflict of interest. This includes submissions involving close collaborators, close personal contacts, students, supervisors, recent co-authors, institutional conflicts, direct competitors, or financial interests.
Initial Assessment
Editors should assess whether submissions fit the journal’s scope and meet the threshold for peer review. Desk rejection may be appropriate where a manuscript is clearly out of scope, ethically problematic, methodologically unsound, seriously underdeveloped, or otherwise unsuitable for review.
Reviewer Selection and Oversight
Editors should select reviewers on the basis of relevant expertise, methodological competence, diversity of perspective where appropriate, and absence of significant conflicts. Editors should monitor reviewer conduct and should not forward abusive, discriminatory, or unprofessional review language without intervention.
Decision-Making
Reviewer reports are advisory. Editors should exercise independent judgment and provide decisions that are reasoned, proportionate, and consistent with the evidence in the manuscript and reviewer feedback.
Complaints, Appeals, and Integrity Concerns
Editors should take complaints, appeals, and misconduct allegations seriously and handle them according to journal policy. Where necessary, editors may seek institutional clarification, supporting documentation, or publisher advice.
Record Keeping
Editors should ensure that key editorial decisions, conflicts, author communications, and integrity concerns are appropriately documented.
Guest Editors
Guest editors must operate under the same standards of fairness, confidentiality, and conflict management as the journal’s regular editors. Ultimate oversight and final authority remain with the journal’s authorised editorial leadership.
Professional Conduct
Editors should communicate respectfully, transparently, and professionally with authors, reviewers, and colleagues. They should avoid retaliatory, defamatory, or dismissive behaviour and should manage disputes calmly and fairly.
Continuous Improvement
Editors should support reviewer development, policy improvement, process quality, and editorial learning in order to strengthen the journal over time.