Peer Review
Peer review is an integral part of scientific publishing that confirms the validity of the science reported. This benefits the entire scientific community. All articles are subjected to double blind peer review according to the high standards increasing the efficiency of the process and raise the quality of your manuscript. Each submitted manuscript is reviewed by promotion committees or experts in the same field and their points of views are transferred to authors. Editor in Chief has the power of decision of acceptance or rejection based on the reviews. Author must carry out all correction following reviewer point of view and additional reviews are also conducted if needed.
Review Process
1. Submission of Paper
The corresponding or submitting author submits the paper to the journal. This is usually via an online system such as Scholar-One Manuscripts. Occasionally, journals may accept submissions by email.
2. Editorial Office Assessment
The journal checks the paper’s composition and arrangement against the journal’s Author Guidelines to make sure it includes the required sections and stylizations. The quality of the paper is not assessed at this point.
3. Appraisal by the Editor-in-Chief (EIC)
The EIC checks that the paper is appropriate for the journal and is sufficiently original and interesting. If not, the paper may be rejected without being reviewed any further.
4. EIC Assigns an Associate Editor (AE)
Some journals have Associate Editors who handle the peer review. If they do, they would be assigned at this stage.
5. Plagiarism detection
The submitted manuscript will be subject to CrossCheck . CrossCheck sometimes flags passages as plagiarized when they have been improperly cited, and, in some instances, there are few ways to describe methods or materials differently. Editors will contact authors to ask them to revise their work or correct their citations.
6. Invitation to Reviewers
The handling editor sends invitations to individuals he or she believes would be appropriate reviewers. As responses are received, further invitations are issued, if necessary, until the required number of acceptances is obtained – commonly this is 2, but there is some variation between journals.
7. Response to Invitations
Potential reviewers consider the invitation against their own expertise, conflicts of interest and availability. They then accept or decline. If possible, when declining, they might also suggest alternative reviewers.
8. Review is Conducted
The reviewer sets time aside to read the paper several times. The first read is used to form an initial impression of the work. If major problems are found at this stage, the reviewer may feel comfortable rejecting the paper without further work. Otherwise they will read the paper several more times, taking notes so as to build a detailed point-by-point review. The review is then submitted to the journal, with a recommendation to accept or reject it – or else with a request for revision (usually flagged as either major or minor) before it is reconsidered.
9. Journal Evaluates the Reviews
The handling editor considers all the returned reviews before making an overall decision. If the reviews differ widely, the editor may invite an additional reviewer so as to get an extra opinion before making a decision.
10. The Decision is Communicated
The editor sends a decision email to the author including any relevant reviewer comments. Whether the comments are anonymous or not will depend on the type of peer review that the journal operates.
11. Next Steps
If accepted, the paper is sent to production. If the article is rejected or sent back for either major or minor revision, the handling editor should include constructive comments from the reviewers to help the author improve the article. At this point, reviewers should also be sent an email or letter letting them know the outcome of their review. If the paper was sent back for revision, the reviewers should expect to receive a new version, unless they have opted out of further participation. However, where only minor changes were requested this follow-up review might be done by the handling editor.
Journal pricing FAQs
What is an APC and what are authors paying for?
As costs are involved in every stage of the publication process, from administrating peer review to copy-editing and hosting the final article on dedicated servers, authors are asked to pay an article processing charge (APC) in order for their article to be published open access under a Creative Commons license.
What funding sources are available to cover APCs?
Many research funders and institutions provide APC funding to support the costs of publishing via the immediate open access route.
Can my institution or funder pay the APC on my behalf?
Authors can request that the invoice be sent to their institution or funder if this organization has agreed to cover the costs of the APC.
In some cases, authors’ funders or institutions may have a formal arrangement with Springer Nature, covering APC costs in some journals.
Are APC fee waivers available?
APC waivers may be offered to authors publishing in fully OA journals in cases of financial need.
How do you ensure that payment of APCs by authors has no influence on whether an article is accepted for publication in journals operating under the hybrid open access model?
For more information on the editorial and peer review process for hybrid journals.
When do I need to confirm that I wish to publish open access via an APC?
Authors submitting to fully open access journals will be asked to confirm at submission that they understand that the journal uses an open access model and that if their article is accepted they must pay an article processing charge. Authors submitting to hybrid journals are given the option to make their articles open access on acceptance.
How long do I have to make the payment?
Credit card payments are processed immediately.
Usual credit terms are 30 days from receipt of original invoice. Invoices will be chased periodically, but if after 60 days no payment is received, the author will be contacted. Please note that for fully open access journals, payment other than by credit card carries an administrative surcharge of £50/$75/€55.
Failure to pay invoices within the stated credit term may result in restrictions placed upon authors' ability to publish with Springer Nature in the future, involvement of a third party debt collection agency and legal proceedings. In the case of articles that Springer Nature publishes on behalf of partners, the partner organisation and, where appropriate, the journal editors may be notified of non-payment and will make a decision on what penalty to levy on the author. However, Springer Nature recognizes that often authors do not pay the APC personally, and if an author's institution is to pay the APC, it may take some time for an invoice to be paid.
What is your APC refund policy?
Springer Nature will refund an article processing charge (APC) if an error on our part has resulted in a failure to publish an article under the open access terms selected by the authors.
How will readers know whether articles are available via open access?
All open access articles clearly indicate that the article has been published as open access and are marked with Creative Commons license text.
Are open access articles available in the print format of a journal?
Where journals publish a print version, open access articles are included in the print journal issue and clearly indicate that the article has been published as open access under a Creative Commons license.
Do any additional page or color charges apply in addition to the APC?
In most cases, fully open access journals published by The future Journals do not charge additional fees for page or color figure costs; all publication costs are included in the APC. Some titles owned by our society partners may charge page and color charges in addition to the APC. Please check individual journal instructions for authors for further details.
For hybrid journals, page and color charges vary by journal, therefore please check individual journal instructions for authors for further details.