For editors
Editing, with the decisions left to editors
Handling editors on this platform own their decisions. Nobody in the publishing house can overturn an editorial decision, ask for one to be reconsidered on commercial grounds, or see a manuscript file without the editor knowing. That is a structural arrangement, not a promise of good behaviour.
The editor's role
- Desk decisions
- Scope, completeness and similarity, within five days. A desk rejection carries a reason — 'out of scope' names the scope it falls outside.
- Reviewer selection
- Two minimum, matched on subject and on method. The platform suggests; the editor chooses and is accountable for the choice.
- The decision
- Made on the reports and on the manuscript, and signed. Editors are named in every decision letter they send.
- Board stewardship
- Associate editors handle their own areas. The Editor-in-Chief sets scope, arbitrates disagreement between reports, and answers appeals.
Appointment & terms
- Three-year terms, renewable once
- Long enough to shape a journal, short enough that a journal is not one person's.
- Appointed by the board, not by the publisher
- The publisher has one vote on the appointment panel and no veto.
- Paid
- An annual honorarium for the Editor-in-Chief and a per-manuscript honorarium for handling editors. Editing is work.
- Published
- Every board member is named on the masthead with their role and affiliation. A journal that will not say who decides is not one you should submit to.
The decision standard
The question is whether the work is sound and whether the conclusions follow from it — not whether it is exciting, not whether it will be cited, and not whether the editor agrees with it.
Novelty is not a criterion on this platform. A careful replication, a well-conducted null result and a study that confirms what everyone suspected are all publishable here, and are all disproportionately absent from the literature for reasons that have nothing to do with their value.
Tools & support
- Lantern, the editorial system
- Submission, reviewer matching, structured reports, decision letters and the audit trail behind all of it, in one place.
- Reviewer matching
- By subject and by method, against the college's declared expertise and its actual completion record — a reviewer who has missed three deadlines is not suggested for a fourth.
- Similarity screening
- iThenticate at desk stage. The report goes to the editor as a document to read, not as a score to act on.
- A managing editor
- Every journal has one. They handle correspondence, chasing, waivers and production so the handling editor's time goes on manuscripts.
- Statistics review
- On request, for any paper where the analysis is the contested part. Available to every editor without a budget conversation.
When something is wrong
Allegations of misconduct — fabrication, plagiarism, image manipulation, undisclosed conflicts, authorship disputes — go to the research integrity team rather than being handled by the journal alone.
- COPE flowcharts
- We follow them. The relevant flowchart is attached to the case file at the outset so everyone can see which process is running.
- The author is heard
- Before any correction or retraction, and in writing. Where an institution investigates, we wait for it unless readers are being actively misled.
- The record stays
- A retracted article remains online, watermarked, with a notice that names the reason. Removing it would break every citation to it and hide what happened.
- Appeals
- One appeal per decision, to the Editor-in-Chief, who may consult a board member who has not seen the file. Appeals are answered within twenty-one days.
Propose a journal
If there is a field with no home — genuinely no home, not merely no prestigious one — we are interested. Bring a scope statement, a prospective board and an argument about the literature that is not currently being published.
