Peer Review Process and Standards
Each submission is checked for suitability when received by the editorial office and may be rejected without review if it is outside the scope of the journal, is obviously of insufficient quality, is missing important sections, or does not follow our policy for <Research Ethics and Integrity>
ABC2 Journal invites external experts (not only Editorial Board members) to review each article that is considered suitable for review processing. The publication decision is made by the Co-Editors-in-Chief after receiving at least two external reviewer reports with recommendations.
Authors are encouraged to suggest suitable reviewers, but the Co-Editors-in-Chief and the editorial office reserves the right to select different reviewers. The reason for asking authors to suggest reviewers is that they are best placed to know to determine the level of expertise needed to review the paper. Additionally, the suggested reviewers may be suitable for other articles on the same topic. Therefore, including these reviewers’ names can help the editorial office to ensure that it is approaching suitable reviewers to conduct reviews of future articles.
ABC2 uses double-blind peer review (neither the authors nor the reviewers know the identity of each other) to avoid bias or any conflict of interest.
On receipt of at least two reviews, the Editor-in-Chief, who is handling the submission, will make a decision of (1) accept, (2) minor revision, (3) major revision, or (4) reject. The reasons for the decision will be communicated to the authors.
When the decision of minor/major revision is made, and the authors do not revise their articles satisfactorily after receiving reviewer reports, then the Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to reject the article. When revised articles are received, they will either be sent out for further review or the Editor-in-Chief will make a decision depending on the level of revision requested.
The time to review and decide on publishing varies significantly, since it is sometimes difficult to find suitable reviewers, and there may be delays in receiving reviewer reports. The Co-Editors-in-Chief and editorial office will make every effort to minimise the time from submission to first decision. The journal aims to make a first decision (after review) within 40–60 days but cannot guarantee this.
Note that articles that do not report original research (e.g. letters to the editor, editorials) are not externally reviewed and the Editor-in-Chief makes the decision to publish.
