Peer Review Process
Manuscripts submitted to the journal editorial office that comply with the formal requirements, formatting requirements, and originality threshold based on verification through the plagiarism detection system are mandatorily forwarded for further peer review.
If the author(s) of the manuscript have a conflict of interest with other scholar(s), they must indicate the existence of such a conflict of interest in the cover letter, in order to avoid assigning the manuscript to the specified scholar (reviewer) and to prevent biased evaluation of the manuscript.
The editorial office uses the following article manuscript peer review system:
Level 1 – technical screening for compliance with the journal’s requirements, scope, and thematic sections. At this stage, incorrect or incomplete article formatting may be identified, which will require revision of the manuscript, and the author / authors will be informed accordingly;
Level 2 – verification of the manuscript text for borrowed content through the StrikePlagiarism system. For the manuscript to be accepted, the text originality must be at least 75%;
Level 3 – double-blind peer review of manuscripts, carried out by at least two scholars holding the academic degree of Candidate of Sciences, Doctor of Sciences, or Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) and having scientific specialization relevant to the subject of the reviewed manuscript. The review process is conducted confidentially: the article manuscript is sent to reviewers through the journal’s electronic platform without indicating the authors’ details. Reviewers are required to provide a clear, objective, and well-reasoned assessment of the manuscript’s compliance with the main scientific criteria, as well as its quality and significance. Each reviewer makes an independent decision.
The peer review period is 10 days from the date of receipt of the article manuscript.
After receiving the reviewers’ reports, the handling editor forwards them to the corresponding author without disclosing the reviewers’ identities, for the purpose of responding to the comments, making the necessary revisions, and resubmitting the manuscript through the electronic platform. The author(s) may, without providing explanations, refuse to respond to the comments, make revisions to the manuscript, and resubmit it to the journal editorial office.
After all comments have been addressed, the necessary revisions have been made to eliminate the reviewers’ remarks, and the revised manuscript has been resubmitted to the journal editorial office, the scientific editor forwards all materials to the reviewer(s) for re-review.
A manuscript that has received positive recommendations from two reviewers and the handling editor is recommended for publication in the journal according to the order of its acceptance for publication. Manuscripts approved by the editorial board are transferred to the executive secretary for issue compilation.
If one reviewer provides a positive recommendation on the manuscript and the second provides a negative recommendation, the manuscript is forwarded by the scientific editor to a third reviewer or a member of the editorial board who is a specialist in the subject area of the manuscript. If the third reviewer or editorial board member provides a positive recommendation, the final decision on the acceptance or rejection of the manuscript for publication is made by the scientific editor of the journal.
In the case of two negative reviews, the manuscript is rejected for publication in the journal.
Article materials rejected by the editorial board based on the results of peer review are not used by the editorial board for its own purposes. The editor or executive secretary notifies the corresponding author of the refusal to publish and sends the reviewers’ reports.
Reviews of manuscripts are stored in electronic format on the journal’s electronic platform for three years.
