Peer review and editorial policy

The journal follows the Springer Nature Peer Review Policy, Process and Guidance, Springer Nature Journal Editors' Code of Conduct, and COPE's Ethical Guidelines for Peer-reviewers.

Approximately 1% of the manuscripts are rejected without review based on formal criteria as they do not comply with the submission guidelines. Each manuscript is assigned to one peer reviewer, who can either be an external expert or a member of the Editorial Board. When the reviewer is a member of the Editorial Board, they will write the review themselves. In special cases (for example, when the topic of the article is interdisciplinary), two reviewers are assigned to the article. The journal follows a single-blind reviewing procedure. The period from submission to the first decision is up to 6 weeks. The approximate rejection rate is 15%. The final decision on the acceptance of a manuscript for publication is mostly made by the responsible editor and sometimes by a meeting of the most active members of the Editorial Board.

If Editors, including the Editor-in-Chief, publish in the journal, they do not participate in the decision-making process for manuscripts where they are listed as co-authors.

Special issues published in the journal follow the same procedures as all other issues. If not stated otherwise, special issues are prepared by the members of the Editorial Board without guest editors.