Editorial independence and conflicts of interest

Editorial independence

Each journal is run by its editor-in-chief and editorial board. The office checks each new manuscript for scope, similarity and completeness against criteria each editor-in-chief sets, and may return it for corrections or reject it at screening; every other decision is the editors’. A rejection at screening can be appealed from the manuscript page.

Science Publications manages the journals’ operations (the office, production, charges). Commercial matters never affect a decision: charges are invoiced only after acceptance, and waivers and discounts are decided by the publisher’s office, never by the journal’s editors. For invited submissions and sponsored special issues, too, only the publisher may reduce or waive the charge.

Conflicts of interest

A conflict of interest is anything that could affect, or seem to affect, an impartial judgement: a recent collaboration or joint paper with an author, the same institution, a personal relationship, a financial interest, or work on the same question.

Editors decline an assignment when they have one and say why, and the office reassigns the manuscript; reviewers decline the invitation, and the editor invites someone else. The editor and reviewer finders flag likely conflicts, such as a shared institution.

Editors’ and guest editors’ own submissions

Editors, guest editors and editorial board members may submit to the journals they serve. Their manuscripts are reviewed in the same way as any other: they are always handled by another editor, and the submitting editor takes no part in the review or the decision and sees the manuscript only as its author. A waiver or a discount for their manuscript is decided case by case, as for anyone.

A guest editor may publish at most one paper of their own in their special issue; it is handled by another editor, never by the guest editor. Such submissions are marked, and the system does not let an editor be assigned a manuscript they wrote.