1. Editorial Process, Peer-Review and Production
Articles submitted to Discovery Medicine are subject to strict peer review. Discovery Medicine operates double-blind peer review (i.e., the authors do not know the reviewers’ identities, and the reviewers do not know the authors’ identities until the paper has been published).
Once a manuscript is submitted, the submission will be first reviewed by the journal’s editorial office for compliance with provided guidelines for preparation of articles. Articles that do not comply with the guidelines will be sent back to the authors. Once a manuscript passes these initial checks, editors will subsequently coordinate the entire editorial process for the manuscript including overseeing pre-check and peer review, decision making regarding suitability for publication, soliciting potential author revisions, manuscript acceptance, copyediting, proofreading, and final publication.
Authors may be asked for adequate revisions, with a second round of peer review if necessary, before a final decision regarding publication is made. Apart from exceptional circumstances, we allow a maximum of two rounds of major revision per manuscript. The final decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief, or another editor (i.e., the Editor-in-Chief in the case of regular submissions, the Guest Editor in the case of Special Issue submissions, or an Editorial Board member in the case of a conflict of interest and of regular submissions if the Editor-in-Chief allows) approved by the Editor-in-Chief.
After the acceptance of an article for publication, the in-house editorial staff organize the production of the paper, which entails copy editing, layout and conversion to XML in preparation for publication on the journal website.
2. Editorial Board Responsibilities
2.1 Editor-in-Chief
The Editor-in-Chief together with the editorial team strive to provide a better experience for authors and readers. The Editor-in-Chief will supervise operations and policies during the publication process.
The responsibilities of the EiC include but are not limited to the following:
• Defining the Aims and Scope of the Journal.
• Understanding journal’s editorial procedure and overviewing the editorial process.
• Attending meetings with the publisher or publication board to promote the journal.
• Maintaining connection to the Editorial Board and assisting the Editorial Office in the smooth management of the journal.
• Providing suggestions for editors when needed.
• Responsibilities for the academic quality of the publication process, including acceptance decisions, approval of Guest Editors and Special Issue topics, and appointing new Editorial Board members.
2.2 Editorial Board Member
An Editorial Board Member will be responsible for:
• Working closely with the editors and other Editorial Board members to develop the Journal’s editorial vision, policy and practices.
• Providing expertise, advice, and assessment assistance to the Editors.
• Promoting the Journal to authors and readers, and soliciting or contribute high quality manuscripts each year.
• Assisting the Editors in identifying potential reviewers.
• Pre-check and making decisions on new submissions related to their research interests;
• Review manuscripts.
The initial term for an Editorial Board membership is one year, renewable. An Editorial Board member may also step down from the position at any time if he or she feels overloaded by the requests from the journal’s Editorial Office.
2.3 Guest Editor Responsibility/Guest Editing a Special Issue
We appreciate collaborations with scholars all over the world. Special issues are normally edited by a Guest Editor who invites colleagues from the same research field to contribute an article on a topic within their area of expertise.
The responsibilities will include but are not limited to the following:
• Working together with the Editorial Office to prepare a description and keywords for the special issue webpage.
• Preparing an Editorial to open or close the special issue.
• Pre-check, supervise the whole peer-review process and take decisions on new submissions in their Special Issue;
• The acceptance or rejection of Guest Editor's own papers will be decided by other Editor-in-Chief or Section Editor-in-Chief.
3. Process for in-House Submissions
Discovery Medicine requires that editorial staff or editors not be involved in processing their own academic work. The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in Discovery Medicine. In these cases, the peer-review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board. Submissions will be assigned to at least two independent outside reviewers. The submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process. Decisions will be made by other Editorial Board Members who do not have a conflict of interest with the author.
Guest Editors should not hold conflicts of interest with authors whose work they are assessing (e.g., from the same institution or collaborate closely). In this case, the Editor-in-Chief or a suitable Editorial Board member will make final acceptance decisions for submitted papers.
This section is required for all papers. If there are no interests to declare, please use the following wording: "Given his/her role as [Guest] Editor [in Chief], <NAME of Editor> had no involvement in the peer-review of this article and has no access to information regarding its peer-review".
4. Ethical Guidelines for Editors
• Editor of a journal has complete responsibility and authority to make editorial decisions on all manuscripts submitted for peer-review and publication.
• Editor should treat all authors with fairness, courtesy, objectivity, and honesty. All manuscripts are to be assessed objectively based on their academic merit and free of all commercial or self-interests.
• Editor should have no conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject/accept.
• When errors are found in a manuscript, the editor should promote publication of corrections or retractions.
• Editor shall ensure that the peer-review process is fair, unbiased, and timely. Research articles must typically be reviewed by at least two independent reviewers.
• Editor shall ensure to preserve the reviewers’ anonymity.
• Editor shall not disclose any information concerning submitted manuscripts before publication of the manuscript.
• Editor shall cooperate with the publisher to describe, implement, and regularly review policies for handling ethical issues and allegations or findings of misconduct by authors and anyone else involved in the peer-review process.
• Editor shall be vigilant in avoiding the possibility of editors and/or reviewers delaying a manuscript for suspicious or unusual reasons.
• Editor is responsible for developing mechanisms, in cooperation with the publisher, to ensure timely publication of accepted manuscripts.
• Editor is responsible for assigning manuscripts to each reviewer following consideration of the reviewer’s area of expertise and interest.
Responsible research publication: international standards for editors
Code of conduct and best practice guidelines for journal editors
Updated on 10 January 2023
