Peer-review process

Articles submitted to Przegląd Europejski - European Studies Quarterly (for details on how to make a submission, see Author's Guidelines) undergo the following review process, that usually should take 4–6 months.

All manuscripts submitted to the Journal are subject to a double-blind peer review (the identities of the Authors and the Reviewers are not disclosed). Two external Reviewers will assess manuscripts initially accepted by the Editors after a technical screening and verification of the thematic scope. Reviewers submit their reviews in writing, together with the declaration of potential conflicts of interest and information whether they discovered the identity of the Authors.

All the decisions are impartial, independent, and based only on the quality of the submitted material, also in the case of special issues or supplements.

    Step 1: Editorial assessment    

1. The Editorial Board reserves the right to make a shortlist of articles, by taking into account the quality of the received papers, the general writing terms or the relevance of the topic.

2. The main criteria for evaluating articles during the assessment procedure:

   1. The subject of the article must be consistent with the journal's profile (Aims & Scope).
   2. The article must be well prepared from the formal side (logical structure, scientific language, summaries and keywords, scientific apparatus, terminology - SCIENTIFIC RELIABILITY GUIDELINES for the Autor; and IMRaD structure guide).
   3. The author must refer in the article to a specific scientific problem.
   4. If the publication discusses already known problems, the Author should bring new aspects or points of view on a given issue.
   5. The editorial board undertake the comprehensive manuscripts screening using the most prominent similarity check service for plagiarism (iThenticate).

    Step 2: Double-blind peer review    

1. After the article is accepted in Step 1, the Editorial Board delete author’s data from the manuscript article for the sake of anonymity and forward it to two independent Reviewers from outside the unit to which the author of the publication is affiliated.

2. The standard peer review applies to all full-length articles and review articles (double-blind review process i.e. the author and the reviewers do not know each other’s identity and the list of particular articles’ reviewers is never published).

3. The conference materials will be published only if they meet the criteria of non-prepublication (see the paragraph Prepublication) and will be subject to the standard peer review procedure.

4. Depending on the nature of the supplementary material, such material may also be subject to the peer review process.

5. Any special issues and supplements are subject to the standard peer review procedure.

6. Non-scientific material that is excluded from the external peer review procedure includes: introductions, editorials, speeches, book reviews, in memoriam statements, society updates (academic events, awards, etc.).

7. The Reviewers will provide reports for the Editorial Board from peer review, carried out by filling a special reviewer form.

8. The review is anonymous and confidential. The Journal publishes a list of Reviewers on the web site, without disclosing details on the reviewed articles.

9. The review process takes place (electronically) using the e-mail adres of Editorial Board of Przegląd Europejski (przeglad.europejski@uw.edu.pl).

10. Articles written by Editors, members of the Board or anyone else having a potential conflict of interest with the Journal (that needs to be disclosed) will be subject to the standard peer review procedure conducted by the Board members and Reviewers who do not have such correlation with the Authors.

11. In the case of articles authored by the Editor-in-Chief, the review process is managed by one of the Deputy Editors who also makes the final decision.

12. The Reviewer signs a declaration of no conflict of interest. Any relationship between the Reviewer and the Author of the publication must be discolsed, i.e:

    1. direct or personal relationships (kinship, legal relationships, conflict, etc.);
    2. professional dependence;
    3. direct scientific cooperation in the last two years preceding the preparation of the review.

13. The review ends with a clear conclusion as to whether or not to accept the text. 

    Step 3: Acceptance, rejection or counselling     

1. After receiving Reviewer's recommendations, an assessment is made whether to accept the article.

   1. Within the evaluation procedure, there are several factors, both quantitative and qualitative that are taken into consideration.
   2. The main selection criteria are: scientific excellence, originality, novelty and relevance for the journal’s audience.
   3. Two positive reviews mean acceptance.

2. The author is informed about the conclusions of the review process by Editorial Board of Przegląd Europejski (przeglad.europejski@uw.edu.pl).

3. The Editorial Board reserve the right to ask the authors for changes, both in form and content, whenever necessary.

4. If the review is not satisfactory, Editors may invite additional reviewers or discuss the case internally. It is always the Editor-in-Chief who makes the final decision on any material to be published in the Journal.

5. If two of the reviews is clearly negative, the article is not subject to further publishing procedure and is rejected. If one of the reviews is negative, the decision to publish the corrected article is made by the Editor-in-Chief. Compliant external reviews are binding on the Editorial Board.

    Step 4: Final editorial works    

1. Accepted manuscripts are then worked on by the Editorial Board, in cooperation with the Authors.

2. The editorial work on each article is carried out by appropriate subject editors, competent in the field to which the article belongs.