Peer-review policy and editorial review flow for submitted manuscripts.
1. Peer review policy
Authors can recommend five potential suggested reviewers and five opposed reviewers on online manuscript submission system. Reviewers should be experts with international published experience in the field, and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:
- The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors.
- The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper.
- The reviewer has published with the authors within the previous three years.
- The reviewer cannot be found after performing a basic Google search, such as name, department, and institution.
2. Editorial and peer review
PAIN Research is committed to prompt peer-review and publication of scientific papers. To maintain a high-quality publication, all submissions undergo a detailed review process. All manuscripts are initially screened by the editorial office to ensure adherence to the editorial and submission guidelines.
PAIN Research Editor-in-Chief, Section Editors and Associate Editors review all submissions for suitability for the journal; manuscripts may be rejected without review at this stage. Submissions deemed complete and appropriate for the scope of the journal then undergo rigorous single-blind peer review by at least two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper.
Once all reviews are complete, the Editors-in-Chief makes a final decision and either accepts the manuscript, returns constructive peer-review feedback to the authors, or rejects the manuscript. If a paper is revised and resubmitted it undergoes additional screening by editors and possibly by reviewers, and line editing is performed by the editors.
Editors are not involved in decisions about papers which they have written themselves or have been written by family members or colleagues or which relate to products or services in which the editor has an interest. Any such submission is subject to all of the journal’s usual procedures, with peer review handled independently of the relevant editor and their research groups.