The submission process

1. Submission

You create an account, upload your manuscript and enter the metadata. The system gives you a reference number immediately — quote it in any correspondence. You can save a draft and return to it.

2. Desk screening (2–7 days)

An editor checks that the paper is in scope, complete and appropriately anonymised. Papers that are clearly out of scope are declined at this stage. We aim to do this quickly precisely so that you can submit elsewhere without losing weeks.

3. Peer review (4–8 weeks)

In-scope papers are sent to at least two independent reviewers under double-anonymous review. Reviewers are asked for a recommendation, a structured score and substantive comments to the author. You can follow the progress of your manuscript in your author dashboard at any time.

4. Decision

The handling editor weighs the reviews and reaches a decision: accept, minor revisions, major revisions, or reject. You receive the full reviewer comments alongside the editor's letter. Reviewer identities are never disclosed.

5. Revision

If revisions are requested, you upload a revised manuscript together with a point-by-point response. Minor revisions are usually assessed by the editor alone; major revisions normally return to the original reviewers.

6. Acceptance and production

On acceptance the manuscript passes to production for copyediting and typesetting. You will receive a proof to check. Once approved, the article is assigned a DOI, published online and deposited with Crossref.

7. Issue assignment

Articles appear online first and are fully citable from that moment. They are later assigned to an issue with final page numbers; the DOI and URL do not change.