Editorial and Peer Review Process

Our review model

NexOneMed operates [double anonymised] peer review: reviewers are not told who the authors are, and authors are not told who the reviewers are. This is why the title page is uploaded as a separate file and why the main manuscript must not identify its authors.

Every research article is reviewed by at least [two] independent external reviewers before any decision to publish is made. No article is published on an editor’s judgement alone.

Who decides

Each manuscript is handled by one named editor, who selects reviewers, reads their reports and makes the decision. The editorial office administers the process but does not make editorial decisions. The publisher plays no part in the assessment of any manuscript.

An editor with a competing interest in a submission — the same institution, a recent collaboration, a personal relationship, or any financial interest — hands it to another editor and sees neither the reviews nor the decision. Manuscripts submitted by one of our own editors are handled entirely by an editor outside that author’s institution, and this is stated on the published article.

The process, stage by stage

1. Initial checks

   The editorial office verifies scope, completeness, ethics approval, consent statements, competing interest declarations and the reporting checklist, and screens the text for plagiarism and image manipulation. Anything missing is requested from the author before the manuscript moves on.

2. Editor assignment

   The manuscript goes to an editor with subject expertise and no competing interest. That editor may reject it at this point if it is out of scope or clearly fails the publication criteria, which spares authors a long wait for a predictable answer.

3. Reviewer invitation

   Reviewers are invited on the basis of demonstrable expertise. They are shown the title and abstract first and are asked to declare any competing interest before accepting.

4. Review

   Reviewers have [N] days and may ask for more. They assess the work against the publication criteria and return comments to the authors, confidential comments to the editor, and a recommendation.

5. Decision

   The handling editor weighs the reports and decides. Reviewers advise; they do not decide, and a split recommendation is resolved by the editor, sometimes with a further reviewer.

6. Revision and re-review

   Revised manuscripts are assessed by the same editor, and usually returned to the original reviewers where the revisions are substantial.

What reviewers are asked

Reviewers are asked to judge whether the work was properly done and properly reported — not whether it is novel, fashionable or likely to be cited. Specifically:

• Do the methods support the research question, and are they described well enough to be repeated?
• Is the analysis appropriate, correctly carried out and correctly interpreted?
• Do the conclusions follow from the data, and are the claims proportionate?
• Are the ethical requirements met and properly documented?
• Does the reporting meet the relevant checklist for the design?
• Are the data available as our policy requires?

Possible decisions

Decision	What it means
Accept	Ready to publish, subject to copy-editing.
Minor revision	Publishable once specific, limited points are addressed. Usually assessed by the editor alone.
Major revision	Potentially publishable, but substantive concerns must be resolved. Normally returned to reviewers.
Reject	The concerns cannot be resolved by revision, or the work is out of scope. The reasons are given in full.

Confidentiality

A submitted manuscript is a confidential document. Reviewers and editors must not share it, discuss it with anyone outside the process without the editor’s agreement, use its content in their own work, or keep a copy once the review is complete. Reviewers must not contact the authors directly.

In the editorial system, a reviewer sees only the manuscripts they have been invited to review, and sees no other reviewer’s identity.

Use of AI in review

Reviewers and editors must not upload a submitted manuscript, in whole or in part, to a generative AI tool. Doing so puts confidential, unpublished work into a third party’s hands. The judgement in a review must be the reviewer’s own.

Timelines

Our target times are: initial checks [N] days, first decision [N] days from submission, and publication [N] days from acceptance. We will publish our actual median times on this page once the journal has enough completed submissions for the figure to mean anything. We will not quote a performance figure we have not measured.

Peer review history

[DECIDE: whether reviewer reports and author responses are published alongside each accepted article, and whether reviewers may sign their reports.] Where this is offered, the review history is linked from the article page.

Appeals and complaints

Appeals against a decision are handled as set out under appeals. Complaints about the conduct of the process itself go to the editorial office and, if unresolved, to the chief editor. We follow COPE guidance on complaints and on suspected misconduct.