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Review Policy

Double-Blind Review Process: ​Explicit procedures for external peer-review

  • All manuscripts submitted to Accelerando: BJMD are subject to a rigorous external double-blind peer review process.
  • Papers written by Accelerando: BJMD editors undergo external peer-review like any other submitted papers.
  • Received manuscripts must not be under simultaneous consideration by any other publication.
  • We welcome suggestions for referees from the author: three to four experts could be suggested, their names, affiliations and email addresses noted and sent accompanying each manuscript through the online manuscript submission system. The Editor-in-Chief’s decision on the choice of peer reviewers should be final. Referees suggested must not be from the same institution as the author nor they should be in any way connected with the author during his research and work on the paper, and should have expert knowledge of the subject. In addition, reviewers should not have conflicts of interest which would interfere with their objectivity.
  • Referees are chosen according to their expertise.
  • Reviewers are known only to the editors not to the authors or to the third party. Correspondence among those involved in the refereeing procedures is performing through emails and by editor-in-chief's mediation.
  • Referees are asked to evaluate whether the manuscript is original, methodologically sound and adequately described, and has results which are clearly presented and support the conclusions. If there are relevant and appropriate sources which have not be cited the referees are obliged to suggest them to the author/authors as references are to be up to date and relevant.
  • Referees are not expected to correct language mistakes or copy-edit manuscripts. After agreeing to review a manuscript, external reviewers are typically granted 20 to 30 days to complete the assignment. We will follow up with late reviewers and keep authors informed if there are any delays.
  • Type of review process which is employed is double blind reviewing, where both the referee and author remain anonymous throughout the process.
  • Duration of review process depends on the length of the manuscript, but usually the manuscript will be reviewed within a month.
  • Referees may request more than one revision of a manuscript.
  • Referees advise their decision to accept or reject the manuscript to the Editor-in-Chief, whose decision to accept or reject the manuscript is final. The decision will be sent to the author along with the recommendations made by the referees.
  • Authors may enter the names of potential peer reviewers they wish to exclude from consideration in the peer review of their manuscript, and in this situation the editorial team will respect these requests so long as this does not interfere with the objective valuation of the submission.
  • The submissions could be evaluated by more than 2 external reviewers in particular situations.
  • After evaluation, the possible decisions may be as following:
    • reject,
    • approve with the further minimal changes (Minor Revision),
    • approve with the further basic changes (Major Revision)
    • approve without changes (Accepted).
  • Authors who receive a decision of Minor Revision or Major Revision have 20 days to resubmit the revised manuscript. The revised manuscript will be re-assigned to the reviewers. The refereeing procedures are to be done again, and in less than two weeks the author will be emailed the final decision.

Editor-in-Chief send the following Example form to each reviewer by e-mail:

example