The following provides notes on each step.

Pre-check

Immediately after submission, the journal’s Managing Editor will perform an initial check to assess:

• Overall suitability of the manuscript to the journal/section/Special Issue;
• Manuscript adherence to high quality research and ethical standards;
• Standards of rigor to qualify for further review.

The academic editor, i.e., the Editor-in-Chief in the case of regular submissions, or the Guest Editor in the case of Special Issue submissions, or an Editorial Board member in case of a conflict of interest and of regular submissions if the Editor-in-Chief allows, will be notified of the submission and invited to perform a check and recommend reviewers. Academic editors can decide to continue with the peer-review process, reject a manuscript, or request revisions before peer-review.

Guest Editors of Special Issues are not able to take decisions regarding their own manuscripts submitted to their Special Issue, as this would constitute a conflict of interest. An Editorial Board member will instead be responsible for decision making. The Guest Editor will be unable to access the review process except in their role as author. Similarly, Editors-in-Chief, or other Editorial Board members are not able to access the review process of their manuscript except in their role as author.

Peer-review

From submission to final decision or publication, one dedicated JERNS staff member coordinates the review process and serves as the main point of contact for authors, academic editors and reviewers.

The process is double-blind for most journals, meaning that the author does not know the identity of the reviewer,and also the reviewer does not know the identity of the author.

At least two review reports are collected for each submitted article. Suggestions of reviewers can be made by the academic editor during pre-check. Alternatively, JENRS editorial staff will use qualified Editorial Board members, qualified reviewers from our database, or new reviewers identified by web searches for related articles.

Authors can recommend potential reviewers. JENRS staff ensure that there are no potential conflicts of interest and will not consider those with competing interests. Authors can also enter the names of potential peer-reviewers they wish to exclude from consideration in the peer-review of their manuscript, during the initial submission of the manuscript. The editorial team will respect these requests as long as they do not interfere with the objective and thorough assessment of the submission.

If the journal has a reviewer board, these reviewers could apply to review a submitted manuscript should the authors agree with this option during submission.

The following checks are applied to all reviewers:

• That they hold no conflicts of interest with the authors, including if they have published together in the last five years;
• That they hold a PhD (exceptions are made in some fields, e.g., medicine);
• They must have recent publications in the field of the submitted paper;
• They have not recently been invited to review a manuscript for JENRS.

Reviewers who accept to review a manuscript are expected to:

• Have the necessary expertise to judge manuscript quality;
• Provide quality review reports and remain responsive throughout peer-review;
• Maintain standards of professionalism and ethics.

Reviewers who accept a review invitation are provided 14 days to write their review via our online platform, whereas extensions can be granted on request.

For the review of a revised manuscript, reviewers are asked to provide their report within seven days. Extensions can also be granted on request.

To assist academic editors, JENRS staff handle all communication with reviewers, authors, and the external editor. Academic editors can check the status of manuscripts and the identity of reviewers at any time, and are able to discuss manuscript review at any stage with JENRS staff.

Revision

In cases where only minor or major revisions are recommended, JENRS staff will request that the author revise the paper before referring to the academic editor. In cases of conflicting review reports, or where there are one or more recommendations for rejection, the academic editor will be requested for their judgement before a decision about revisions is communicated to authors.

Revised versions of manuscripts may or may not be sent to reviewers, depending on whether the reviewer requested to see the revised version. By default, reviewers who request major revisions or recommend rejection will be sent the revised manuscript. All reviewers can access the most recent version of the manuscript via manuscriptlink.

A maximum of two rounds of major revision per manuscript is normally provided. If more rounds are required according to the reviewers, JENRS staff request a decision from the academic editor.

Editor Decision

Acceptance decisions on manuscripts can be taken by the academic editor after peer-review once a minimum of two review reports have been received. Acceptance decisions are taken by an academic editor (the Editor-in-Chief, a Guest Editor, or another suitable Editorial Board member). Guest Editors are not able to take decisions on their own papers which will instead be assigned to a suitable Editorial Board member. When making a decision, we expect that the academic editor checks the following:

• The suitability of selected reviewers;
• Adequacy of reviewer comments and author response;
• Overall scientific quality of the paper.

The academic editor can select from the following options: accept with minor revisions, accept subject to revisions, major revision requested, reject but encourage resubmission, reject and decline with no re-resubmission.

Reviewers make recommendations, and the Editors-in-Chief or academic editors are free to disagree with their views. If they do so, they should justify their decision for the benefit of the authors and reviewers.

In some instances, an academic editor supports a decision of manuscript acceptance despite a reviewer recommendation to reject. JENRS staff will seek a second independent opinion from an Editorial Board member or the Editor-in-Chief before communicating a final decision to the authors.

Articles can only be accepted for publication by an academic editor. Employed JENRS staff then inform authors. JENRS staff never take acceptance decisions on papers.

JENRS staff or Editorial Board members (including Editors-in-Chief) are not involved in the processing of their own academic work. Their submissions are assigned and revised by at least two independent reviewers. Decisions are made by other Editorial Board members who do not have a conflict of interest with the authors.

Production

JENRS’s in-house teams perform production on all manuscripts, including language editing, copy editing. Language editing is carried out by professional English editing staff. In the small number of cases where extensive editing or formatting is required, we offer authors an English editing service for an additional fee (with authors’ prior approval). The authors are also free to use other English editing services, or consult a native English-speaking colleague—the latter being our preferred option.

Publication Ethics

The editors of this journal enforce a rigorous peer-review process together with strict ethical policies and standards to ensure to add high quality scientific works to the field of scholarly publication. Unfortunately, cases of plagiarism, data falsification, image manipulation, inappropriate authorship credit, and the like, do arise. The editors of JENRS take such publishing ethics issues very seriously and are trained to proceed in such cases with a zero tolerance policy.

Authors wishing to publish their papers in JENRS must abide to the following:

• Any facts that might be perceived as a possible conflict of interest of the author(s) must be disclosed in the paper prior to submission.
• Authors should accurately present their research findings and include an objective discussion of the significance of their findings.
• Data and methods used in the research need to be presented in sufficient detail in the paper, so that other researchers can replicate the work.
• Raw data should preferably be publicly deposited by the authors before submission of their manuscript. Authors need to at least have the raw data readily available for presentation to the referees and the editors of the journal, if requested. Authors need to ensure appropriate measures are taken so that raw data is retained in full for a reasonable time after publication.
• Simultaneous submission of manuscripts to more than one journal is not tolerated.
• If errors and inaccuracies are found by the authors after publication of their paper, they need to be promptly communicated to the editors of this journal so that appropriate actions can be taken.
• Your manuscript should not contain any information that has already been published. If you include already published figures or images, please obtain the necessary permission from the copyright holder to publish under the CC-BY license.
• Plagiarism, data fabrication and image manipulation are not tolerated.

Publishing Standards and Guidelines

JENRS follow the following guidelines and standards:

The CONSORT statement covers reporting of randomized, controlled trials. We encourage authors to verify their work against the checklist and flow diagram and upload them with their submission.

TOP covers transparency and openness in the reporting of research. Our journals aim to be at level 1 or 2 for all aspects of TOP. Specific requirements vary between journals and can be requested from the editorial office.

PRISMA covers systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Authors are recommended to complete the checklist and flow diagram and include it with their submission.

ARRIVE contains guidelines for reporting in vivo experiments. Authors are recommended to verify their work against the checklist and include it with their submission.

iThenticate is an industry-standard software for plagiarism detection. Used during the first screening of a manuscript or pre-check, it can also be used at any stage of the peer-review process and especially before acceptance of a manuscript for publication.

Compliance with the standards and guidelines above will be taken into account during the final decision and any discrepancies should be clearly explained by the authors. We recommend that authors highlight relevant guidelines in their cover letter.

Editorial Independence

All articles published by JENRS are peer-reviewed and assessed by our independent Editorial Boards, and JERNS staff are not involved in decisions to accept manuscripts. When making a decision, we expect the academic editor to make it based solely upon:

• The suitability of selected reviewers;
• Adequacy of reviewer comments and author response;
• Overall scientific quality of the paper.