For reviewers

Thank you for your interest in reviewing for Sustainability and Social Impact. These guidelines are intended to help you at all stages, from deciding whether to accept an invitation to delivering a helpful and constructive report.

What to consider before accepting an invitation to review a manuscript.

Before you accept

The following questions should help you decide whether to accept an invitation to review for a Sustainability and Social Impact journal:

• Do you understand the role and responsibilities of a reviewer?
• Are you technically qualified to review (aspects of) the article?
• Are you able to provide the report in a timely fashion?
• Do you have any competing interests?
• What are the benefits for you in reviewing a manuscript?

If you decide to accept, you should also read Our editorial policies, which you must comply with.

Reviewer role and responsibilities

Through their assessment of the validity of submitted manuscripts and the constructive feedback they provide, peer reviewers play an essential role in maintaining the integrity of the scientific literature. Reviewer feedback helps authors strengthen their work, and is used by editors when deciding whether to publish submitted manuscripts.

Your reviewer report

The primary responsibility of peer reviewers is to help our editors assess whether a study is technically sound, and we value detailed comments on the methodological approaches used in the manuscript, the data presented and their analysis/interpretation. A high-quality reviewer report should be constructive and contain a thoughtful evaluation of the work, with comments supported by sound scientific reasoning. If there are aspects of the study that fall outside of your expertise and that you did not or could not evaluate, please note this in your comments to the editor. We also find it valuable if reviewers express their opinion on the potential significance of the study to the field and on the interest that the work is likely to generate in and beyond the field. However, it is not necessary to indicate whether the paper is of the standard that you would expect for the journal. In your report, you are welcome to recommend a particular course of action; however, the final decision on the manuscript rests with the editor.

We inform reviewers of our decisions at each stage of the process and share the other reviewers’ reports with them. Reviewing for Sustainability and Social Impact journals is by default anonymous but you are welcome to sign your report if you wish to reveal your identity to the authors. You are welcome to comment on the other reviewers’ reports — by emailing the editor — if you have any feedback on the points they have raised. All recommendations are taken into consideration, but if your recommendation is not followed that doesn't reflect a lack of confidence in your judgement. Experts often disagree and we must differentiate between editorial and technical comments and weigh up conflicting advice, keeping in mind the perspectives and expertise of all reviewers, any feedback we’ve received from the authors on how they might address the concerns, and the standards of the journal.

Additional feedback

The majority of successful submissions to Sustainability and Social Impact journals will require revision before they are suitable for publication, and reviewer feedback provides a guide for authors on what to do to improve their manuscript. In cases where we’ve received mixed feedback on a manuscript, or where we might need further clarification of a point raised in review, we might ask you to elaborate on your comments or those of the other reviewers prior to making our editorial decision.

Most of our published papers undergo more than one round of review before being accepted, and we strive for consistency in the review process. Therefore, we ask that when you agree to review a manuscript, you commit to reviewing future iterations of that manuscript until a final decision is made.

Transferred manuscripts

A manuscript submitted to one of our journals might not meet the expectations for publication in that title, but could be well-suited for another at our consorsium. To help authors publish their work quickly, we offer a transfer service between our journals. Please note that if a manuscript you reviewed is transferred by the authors to another our consorsium journal, your identity and report will also be transferred, where it will be assessed by the in-house editorial team. If you are asked to review a revised version of the manuscript post-transfer, we ask that you do your best to adapt your expectations to the standards of the new journal in relation to perceived significance and interest.

Timeliness

As a service to our authors, we make every effort to deliver timely decisions, and our editors will request that a reviewer returns their report typically within one to two weeks. Exact deadlines depend on the journal and might be longer to account for seasonal holidays. A fast response, even if negative, will help authors get their work assessed quickly.

We do understand that reviewers are very busy, however, and we do not sacrifice the quality of review for speed. If you are interested in reviewing the manuscript, but need additional time beyond the deadline suggested by the editor, please let us know. In most cases, we can grant reasonable requests to extend the deadline. If you encounter unexpected delays after accepting, please let the editor know as soon as you can. We will work with you to arrange an extension or let you know if we can proceed without your report.

Competing interests

Our editors research potential reviewers carefully before sending an invitation to review to avoid potential competing interests. However, some competing interests might not be apparent to us, so we ask that you are transparent about factors that may affect your objectivity in assessing the study. In the following cases you should inform the editor prior to accepting their invitation:

• You are or recently were employed at the same institution as any of the authors
• You are or recently were collaborating with any of the authors on a different project
• You are engaged in competing research on a very similar topic
• You are in a close or an adverse personal relationship with any of the authors

In addition to the above, consider whether any of the following might influence your assessment of the manuscript:

• The results of the study could trigger personal or institutional financial gains or losses
• The manuscript’s publication could affect your professional standing
• Your political stance might influence your interpretation of the results
• Your opinions about an author or an institution could compromise your objectivity

If you have a competing interest, please decline the invitation to review. If you are unsure of whether a factor is a competing interest, contact the editor for guidance. If a competing interest becomes clear only after you have begun a review, notify the editor as soon as possible to excuse yourself from the review process.

Having reviewed the manuscript for another journal does not constitute a competing interest, provided that you feel you can objectively assess the study with the standards of our journal in mind. Please discuss your prior experience of the manuscript with the editor if you have any questions or concerns, without having to disclose confidential details such as the journal you reviewed for.

The benefits of reviewing

Reviewing a manuscript can help you keep abreast of developments in your field before they are published, and offers insight into the review process that will help you with your own submissions. As a peer reviewer, your contribution to supporting scientific progress is widely appreciated. Some institutions take peer review experience into consideration when making hiring and promotion decisions, and we offer all reviewers the option of downloading a certificate detailing their peer review experience with us. Additionally, Sometime we ask reviewers if they would like their names acknowledged on the published paper, as a means of recognizing the peer reviewers’ contributions to the work (see section on Peer review initiatives).

 

Our editorial policies

Whether you are new to reviewing for Sustainability and Social Impact or experienced, please read our editorial policies before you begin.

Confidentiality

Confidentiality is very important to us. We ask all reviewers to abide by our confidentiality policy: all correspondence, information and material exchanged during manuscript review must be kept in the strictest confidence, both before and after publication. If you wish to seek advice from a colleague while reviewing a manuscript, you must receive explicit permission from the editor in advance of sharing a copy of the manuscript. In these instances, please be sure to also note the names of these colleagues in your comments to the editor when you submit your report.

Reviewing manuscripts will give you an exciting preview of work in progress, but to avoid breaching confidentiality, please wait until the paper you have reviewed has been published before citing its results in your own manuscript. If the authors have posted a preprint to an established preprint server, you may cite the preprint in advance of publication. Importantly, you should not use the results of the work you have reviewed in your own research before the work is published.

Reviewer identity

We keep reviewer identities confidential throughout the review process. However, reviewers who choose to do so can sign their report. This will reveal their identity to the authors and also to the other reviewers after each round of review, when all the reports are shared after the editorial decision is made (or prior to the decision if we are seeking reviewer input on their peers’ comments). There are pros and cons in revealing your identity: identified reviewers may find it more challenging to review subsequent versions of the manuscript, when reviewers are sometimes asked to comment on each other’s points; on the other hand, signing reports improves the transparency and accountability of the process.

We ask that you refrain from identifying yourself to authors by any means other than signing your review. We are firmly opposed to attempts by authors to determine reviewer identities, and it is our policy to neither confirm nor deny any such speculation; we encourage our reviewers to do likewise.

Double-blind peer review

We offer the option of double-blind peer review. Authors who choose this option remain anonymous to reviewers throughout the peer review process. In these cases, you will only become aware of the authors’ identities at the point of publication.

 

Peer review initiatives

We strive to innovate in our peer review process, to improve its efficacy, quality and transparency. We are constantly monitoring and reviewing our efforts to address more closely the needs of the research community. Our most recent initiatives are described below.

Transparent peer review

When you accept the request to review for a journal that offers transparent peer review, you agree to have your report published alongside the main paper, if the author chooses this option when the paper is accepted.

If you have reviewed a manuscript that is then transferred to a new journal that offers transparent peer review, your report at the previous journal will not be published even if the authors opt for transparent peer review; however, any further review that you undertake for the new journal might be published depending on the author choice.

Reviewer recognition

Some of our journals offer reviewers the possibility of having their names added, in acknowledgement of their contribution, to the final published paper. A reviewer will be asked during the review process whether they wish to be named or prefer to remain anonymous. Where the journal also offers transparent peer review, we encourage reviewers who wish to be named to also sign their reports.

General information

The following types of contribution to our journals are peer-reviewed: research Articles, Reviews, Perspectives, Comments, Editorials, Features and Correspondence Articles. Correspondence and all forms of published correction may also be peer-reviewed at the discretion of the editors.

Other contributed articles are not usually peer-reviewed. Nevertheless, articles published in these sections, particularly if they present technical information, may be peer-reviewed at the discretion of the editors.

For any general questions and comments about the peer-review process, the journal or its editorial policies that are not addressed here, we encourage reviewers to contact us directly by email to ahmad.malik@uisi.ac.id.

Questions about a specific manuscript should be directed to the editor who is handling the manuscript.

Online manuscript review

We ask peer-reviewers to submit their reports via our online system by following the link provided in the editor's email. A helpdesk email account for any technical problems might be directed to yohanes.riskajaya@uisi.ac.id.

Criteria for publication

In general, to be acceptable, a paper should represent an advance in understanding likely to influence thinking in the field, with strong evidence for their conclusions. There should be a discernible reason why the work deserves the visibility of publication in a our journal rather than the best of the other specialist journals.

Our journals recognize the importance of post-publication commentary on published research as necessary to advancing scientific discourse. Formal post-publication commentary on published papers can involve challenges, clarifications or, in some cases, replication of the published work and may, after peer review, be published online as Comments, usually alongside a Reply from the original authors.

Details of the submission criteria and peer review process for Comment are provided in the Guide to Authors.

The review process

All submitted manuscripts are read by the editorial staff. To save time for authors and peer-reviewers, only those papers that seem most likely to meet our editorial criteria are sent for formal review. Those papers judged by the editors to be of insufficient general interest or otherwise inappropriate are rejected promptly without external review (although these decisions may be based on informal advice from specialists in the field).

Manuscripts judged to be of potential interest to our readership are sent for formal review, typically to two or three reviewers, but sometimes more if special advice is needed (for example on statistics or a particular technique). The editors then make a decision based on the reviewers' advice, from among several possibilities:

• Accept, with or without editorial revisions
• Invite the authors to revise their manuscript to address specific concerns before a final decision is reached
• Reject, but indicate to the authors that further work might justify a resubmission
• Reject outright, typically on grounds of specialist interest, lack of novelty, insufficient conceptual advance or major technical and/or interpretational problems

Reviewers are welcome to recommend a particular course of action, but they should bear in mind that the other reviewers of a particular paper may have different technical expertise and/or views, and the editors may have to make a decision based on conflicting advice. The most useful reports, therefore, provide the editors with the information on which a decision should be based. Setting out the arguments for and against publication is often more helpful to the editors than a direct recommendation one way or the other.

Editorial decisions are not a matter of counting votes or numerical rank assessments, and we do not always follow the majority recommendation. We try to evaluate the strength of the arguments raised by each reviewer and by the authors, and we may also consider other information not available to either party. Our primary responsibilities are to our readers and to the scientific community at large, and in deciding how best to serve them, we must weigh the claims of each paper against the many others also under consideration.

We may return to reviewers for further advice, particularly in cases where they disagree with each other, or where the authors believe they have been misunderstood on points of fact. We therefore ask that reviewers should be willing to provide follow-up advice as requested. We are very aware, however, that reviewers are usually reluctant to be drawn into prolonged disputes, so we try to keep consultation to the minimum we judge necessary to provide a fair hearing for the authors.

When reviewers agree to assess a paper, we consider this a commitment to review subsequent revisions. However, editors will not send a resubmitted paper back to the reviewers if it seems that the authors have not made a serious attempt to address the criticisms.

We take reviewers' criticisms seriously; in particular, we are very reluctant to disregard technical criticisms. In cases where one reviewer alone opposes publication, we may consult the other reviewers as to whether they are applying an unduly critical standard. We occasionally bring in additional reviewers to resolve disputes, but we prefer to avoid doing so unless there is a specific issue, for example a specialist technical point, on which we feel a need for further advice.

Selecting peer-reviewers

Reviewer selection is critical to the publication process, and we base our choice on many factors, including expertise, reputation, specific recommendations and our own previous experience of a reviewer's characteristics. For instance, we select referees who are quick, careful and provide reasoning for their views, whether robustly critical or forgiving.

We check with potential reviewers before sending them manuscripts to review. Reviewers should bear in mind that these messages contain confidential information, which should be treated as such.

We commit to diversity, equity and inclusion; our journals strive for diverse demographic representation of peer reviewers. Authors are strongly encouraged to consider geographical regions, gender, racial/ethnic groups, and other groups when providing suggestions for peer reviewers.

 

Editing referees' reports

As a matter of policy, we do not suppress reviewers' reports; any comments that were intended for the authors are transmitted, regardless of what we may think of the content. On rare occasions, we may edit a report to remove offensive language or comments that reveal confidential information about other matters. We ask reviewers to avoid statements that may cause needless offence; conversely, we strongly encourage reviewers to state plainly their opinion of a paper. Authors should recognize that criticisms are not necessarily unfair simply because they are expressed in robust language.

The peer-review system

It is editors' experience that the peer-review process is an essential part of the publication process, which improves the manuscripts our journals publish. Not only does peer review provide an independent assessment of the importance and technical accuracy of the results described, but the feedback from referees conveyed to authors with the editors' advice frequently results in manuscripts being refined so that their structure and logic is more readily apparent to readers.

Our journals are appreciative of its peer-reviewers, of whom there are many tens of thousands. It is only by collaboration with our reviewers that editors can ensure that the manuscripts we publish are among the most important in their disciplines of scientific research. We appreciate the time that reviewers devote to assessing the manuscripts we send them, which helps ensure that our journals publish only material of the very highest quality. In particular, many submitted manuscripts contain large volumes of additional (supplementary) data and other material, which take time to evaluate. We thank our reviewers for their continued commitment to our publication process.

Much has been written, in our journals and elsewhere, on the peer-review system as a whole. Alternative systems have been proposed in outline: for example, signed peer-review, anonymized peer-review and open peer review. The system has been exhaustively studied, reported on, and assessed -- both positively and negatively.

Our journals' position on the value of the peer-review system is represented as follow.

Reviewing peer review

The goals of peer review are both lofty and mundane. It is the responsibility of journals to administer an effective review system. Peer review is designed to select technically valid research of significant interest. Referees are expected to identify flaws, suggest improvements, and assess novelty. If the manuscript is deemed important enough to be published in a high visibility journal, referees ensure that it is internally consistent, thereby ferreting out spurious conclusions or clumsy frauds.

One problem with manuscript selection is the inherent tension between referees and authors. Referees wish for only the most solid science to be published, yet when they 'switch hats' to that of author, they desire quick publication of their novel ideas and approaches. Authors of papers that blow against the prevailing winds bear a far greater burden of proof than normally expected in publishing their challenge to the current paradigm. Veering too far in one direction or the other leads to complaints either that peer review isn't stringent enough, or that it is stifling the freshest research. It is the job of the editors to try to avoid both extremes.

Journal editors do not expect peer review to ferret out cleverly concealed, deliberate deceptions. A peer reviewer can only evaluate what the authors chose to include in the manuscript. This contrasts with the expectation in the popular press that peer review is a process by which fraudulent data is detected before publication (although that sometimes happens).

We are continually impressed with peer review's positive impact on almost every paper we publish. Even papers that are misunderstood by reviewers are usually rewritten and improved before resubmission. Mistakes are made, but peer review, through conscientious effort on the part of referees, helps to protect the literature, promote good science and select the best. Until a truly viable alternative is provided, we wouldn't have it any other way.