Reviewers
Open Peer Review
Once submitted to the journal, the manuscript will be directed to a section editor or an associate editor. This editor will decide if it will go to review from the following questions:
- Is the material of scientific content?
- Is the topic suitable for the journal's aims and scope?
With affirmative answers to both questions, the editor can start the review process with the reviewers suggested by the authors or other reviewers contacted specifically by the BEC editors.
Before accepting to review a manuscript, the reviewers will be asked the following questions:
- Do you declare any conflict of interest?
- Does the manuscript match your area of expertise?
- Will you be able to provide a review within 3 weeks of the request?
- Reviewers will also be asked (1) to accept the Open Peer Review format, and (2) to decide, if they want to be listed on the BEC website under ‘BEC reviewers’. Editorial board members may equally act as reviewers.
Mediation:
- External review should lead without 'unreasonable' delay to publication in Bioenergetics Communications. BEC reviewers do not have the option to insist on additional experiments, but strictly focus on the quality of the presently provided information. BEC reviewers may suggest additional experiments for future versions, without delay of publishing the actually available and evaluated information.
- Reviewer's comments will be sent directly to the authors (corresponding author).
- Upon publication, reviewers comments and author responses will be made publicly available on the BEC publication page (open peer-review, signed and published).
Criteria for acceptance:
A minimum of 2 reviewers’ acceptance (including with minor or major revisions) will be necessary to publish an article. In the case that the two have very different reviews, the editor can decide on asking for a third reviewer. There is no maximum of reviewers, and new reviews can be published any time, also after acceptance and publication of the manuscript.
