Peer Review Process & Policy

Peer review is central to how Scopapers journals assess the quality, originality, and rigour of the research they publish. This policy describes how manuscripts move from submission to decision and what authors and reviewers can expect at each stage.

Editorial triage

Every submission is first checked by the journal's editorial team for scope, completeness, adherence to the submission requirements, and research and publication integrity, including a screen for plagiarism. Manuscripts that fall outside the journal's scope or that do not meet basic standards may be declined at this stage without full review, so that authors receive a prompt decision and can submit elsewhere without delay.

Peer review

Manuscripts that pass triage are sent to independent expert reviewers with relevant subject knowledge. Reviewers assess the significance and originality of the work, the soundness of its methods, the validity of its conclusions in light of the evidence, the clarity of the presentation, and the appropriateness of the references. They return a recommendation together with detailed comments for the authors and, where relevant, confidential comments for the editor.

Anonymity model

The degree of anonymity is set per journal. Journals configured for double-anonymous review conceal the identities of both authors and reviewers from each other, so that assessment focuses solely on the work; authors should prepare an anonymised manuscript for these journals. Journals configured for single-anonymous review keep reviewer identities confidential while the reviewers can see who the authors are. Each journal states which model it uses on its guidelines page. Reviewer identities are kept confidential in all cases.

Editorial decision

Drawing on the reviewers' reports, the handling editor reaches one of the following decisions: accept, minor or major revisions, or decline. When revisions are requested, authors receive the reviewers' comments and are invited to submit a revised manuscript with a response explaining the changes made. Revised manuscripts may be returned to the original reviewers. The final decision rests with the journal's editors and is made on scholarly merit alone; the number of review rounds depends on the manuscript.

Timeliness and appeals

We aim to reach a first decision within the timeframe published by each journal, and we ask reviewers to respect the review deadline. Authors who believe a decision was reached in error may appeal through the procedure described in our Complaints & Appeals policy.

Guidance for reviewers

We ask reviewers to treat every manuscript as confidential, to declare any conflict of interest and decline where one exists, to be constructive and specific in their comments, to flag any suspected misconduct or undisclosed overlap with other work to the editor, and to avoid using generative AI tools in a way that would upload a confidential manuscript to an external service.