Peer Review Process

1. Initial Editorial Screening

Upon submission, each manuscript undergoes an initial editorial screening to assess its alignment with the journal's aims and scope, compliance with submission requirements, ethical standards, originality, and overall suitability for further consideration.

Manuscripts that do not meet the journal's scope, basic scientific standards, ethical requirements, or submission guidelines may be returned to the authors or rejected without external peer review.

Manuscripts considered suitable for further evaluation are assigned to an editor with appropriate subject expertise to oversee the peer-review process.

2. Reviewer Assignment and Single-Blind Review

Manuscripts that pass the initial screening are assigned to at least two independent external expert reviewers with relevant subject expertise. Reviewers are selected based on their academic qualifications, research expertise, and experience, with careful consideration given to avoiding any conflicts of interest with the authors or the submitted work.

The journal adopts a single-blind peer-review model, in which reviewers are aware of the authors’ identities, while authors do not know the identities of the reviewers. Reviewers assess the manuscript in terms of originality, methodological soundness, clarity of presentation, relevance to the journal’s scope, and contribution to the field.

3. Review Process

Reviewers evaluate manuscripts with regard to their originality, scientific and methodological soundness, clarity of presentation, relevance to the journal's scope, validity of the results and conclusions, and contribution to the field.

Reviewers are expected to provide objective, constructive, and sufficiently detailed comments to assist both the authors in improving their manuscript and the editors in reaching an informed editorial decision.

Reviewer reports are treated as confidential and are not published with the article.

4. Editorial Recommendation and Decision

Following receipt of the reviewers' reports, the assigned editor evaluates the manuscript together with the reviewers' comments and provides an editorial recommendation.

The recommendation may be:

• Accept;
• Minor Revision;
• Major Revision; or
• Reject.

Where reviewer reports differ substantially or additional expertise is required, the assigned editor may seek an additional independent review before making a recommendation.

The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the editorial decision based on the manuscript, reviewers' reports, and the recommendation of the assigned editor. Authors receive the editorial decision together with the anonymized reviewer comments.

5. Revision and Resubmission

When revision is requested, authors should submit a revised manuscript together with a point-by-point response to the reviewers' and editors' comments within the specified period.

Revised manuscripts are normally evaluated by the same assigned editor and may be returned to the original reviewers when further expert assessment is considered necessary, particularly following major revisions.

The revision and review process may continue until an appropriate editorial decision can be reached.

6. Final Decision and Publication

The final decision on acceptance or rejection rests with the Editor-in-Chief.

Accepted manuscripts proceed to copyediting, production, author proofing, and online publication under the journal's open-access Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license.