Reviewer Guidelines – JFSTI

Reviewers are expected to give written, competent, and unbiased feedback promptly on the scholarly merits and scientific value of the manuscript.

The reviewers assess the manuscript for compliance with the journal's profile, the relevance of the investigated topic and the applied methods, the originality and scientific significance of the information presented, as well as the presentation style and scholarly apparatus.

Reviewers should inform the Editor of any well-founded suspicions or knowledge of potential breaches of ethical standards by the authors. They should recognise relevant published works that the authors have not cited and notify the Editor of substantial similarities between the reviewed manuscript and any other manuscript published or under consideration elsewhere, if they are aware of such. Additionally, reviewers should alert the Editor to a parallel submission of the same manuscript to another journal, if they know of such.

Reviewers must not have any conflicts of interest regarding the research, the authors, or the funding sources. If such conflicts exist, they must report them to the Editor immediately.

Any chosen reviewer who feels unqualified to assess the research reported in a manuscript or knows that a prompt review will be impossible should inform the Editor without delay.

Reviews must be conducted impartially. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should articulate their opinions clearly with supporting arguments.

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential. Reviewers must not use unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts without the explicit written consent of the authors. The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal benefit.

The submitted manuscripts undergo a double-blind (double anonymised) peer review process involving three reviewers (hereafter referred to as REVIEWER 1, REVIEWER 2, and REVIEWER 3). The peer review is expected to be completed within 2 to 3 weeks (14 to 21 days) after acceptance. The purpose of the peer review is to assist the Editor-in-Chief / Section Editors in making editorial decisions, and through communication with the author, it may also help improve the manuscript.

The selection of reviewers is at the discretion of the Section Editor1. Reviewers must be knowledgeable about the manuscript's subject area; they must not be from the authors' institution and should not have recent joint publications with any of the authors.

The peer review process will be a double-blind review (double anonymised review). In this process, the names and affiliations of both the reviewers and the author are kept unknown to each other. This ensures that manuscripts are judged on merit rather than the reputation or status of the author(s). All reviewers of a manuscript work independently and are unaware of each other's identities.2 If the decisions of the two reviewers differ (accept/reject), the Editor-in-Chief or Section Editor may assign additional reviewers.

During the review process, the Section Editor may request authors to provide additional information, including raw data, if required for evaluating the scholarly merit of the manuscript. These materials must be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

The editorial team shall ensure reasonable quality control for the reviews. Regarding reviewers whose reviews are convincingly questioned by authors, special attention will be given to ensure that the reviews are objective and meet high academic standards. If there is any doubt about the objectivity of the reviews or the quality of the review, additional reviewers will be assigned.

Members of the editorial team or guest editors are permitted to submit their papers to the journal. If an author is affiliated with the journal, they will be excluded from all editorial responsibilities for that paper, and a different team member will be assigned to oversee the peer review process.