Reviewing Procedure
The Central European Economic Journal uses the double-blind peer review method to evaluate submitted manuscripts: reviewers do not know the identity of the authors, and authors do not know the identity of the reviewers. The review process takes place in the ScholarOne system.
• The initial review of the manuscript is carried out by the Editors from the Editorial Office (Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor), who check whether the article aligns with the aim and scope of the journal, and whether it meets the basic quality and formatting requirements. All submissions are also checked with Crossref Similarity Check. This stage may result in a decision to start the review process of the article, a desk rejection decision (if the basic quality requirements are not met) or an unsubmission decision (e.g., when the author has to remove the author’s identification data from the main document or forgot to include a cover letter). The initial assessment phase lasts approximately 2 weeks.
• After the decision to review the article, the Editor-in-Chief selects the thematically appropriate Associate Editor, who receives a notification from the ScholarOne system that the review process should begin. The Associate Editor invites at least two reviewers.
• We choose reviewers with expertise in the subject of the manuscript and a relevant publication record. Reviewers should have no conflict of interest with the authors – for example, they should not work at the same institution, have co-authored with them recently, or have supervised them. Most of our reviewers come from outside the University of Warsaw, and the majority are based at institutions outside Poland. We check each reviewer’s identity and affiliation before sending an invitation. Reviewers suggested by authors are used only occasionally, once we have made sure there is no conflict of interest, and never as the only reviewers of a manuscript.
• Reviewers are notified by e-mail of an invitation to review a manuscript. If they select the “Agreed” hyperlink, they receive an additional e-mail that contains a link to the reviewer centre. Reviews are prepared in the ScholarOne system. The reviewer confirms the absence of a conflict of interest when agreeing to review (based on the available abstract) and in the review form. Should a reviewer indicate a conflict of interest, the Associate Editor appoints another reviewer. The process of appointing reviewers takes about two weeks.
• Authors, by logging into the system, know at what stage their manuscript is.
• The time to prepare a review is 1 month. In addition to completing the review form and confirming the absence of a conflict of interest (see For Reviewers), reviewers make an unambiguous recommendation by selecting one of the options: Accept, Minor Revision, Major Revision, or Reject. Reviewers must keep the manuscript confidential and must not upload it, or any part of it, to generative AI tools or other external services.
• The Associate Editor also gives comments, remarks and recommendations to the article taking into account the quality and relevance with respect to CEEJ standards.
• Authors, after receiving two or three anonymous reviews, are asked to revise the manuscript within the set time (1 month for minor revision, 2 months for major revision), and return the revised version with responses for each reviewer. The changes should be marked with a different colour or in change mode.
• After the first round of reviews, Associate Editors and/or reviewers evaluate the revisions made by the author(s). They decide whether the revised manuscript can be accepted. If revisions are not sufficient, a second round (and more if needed) of the review process follows. The second round takes place when reviews require major revision or are extremely different, e.g., reject and minor revision. In such cases, the Associate Editor appoints an additional reviewer.
• The final decision on acceptance for publication is made by the Editor-in-Chief after taking into account all recommendations. Authors receive the decision together with the reviewers’ comments.
• The same rules apply to Special Issues – a collection of papers submitted in reply to a call for papers announced by CEEJ – and to manuscripts submitted by members of the Editorial Board. In the case of manuscripts submitted by the Editor-in-Chief, the initial review is carried out by the Managing Editor. Editors who submit their own manuscripts are excluded from all stages of handling them and have no access to information about their review.
• Reviews are not published and are not passed on to other journals without the reviewers’ permission.
• Authors may appeal an editorial decision by writing to the Editorial Office at ceej@uw.edu.pl within 30 days of the decision, explaining the grounds for the appeal. Appeals are considered by the Editor-in-Chief, or by another member of the Editorial Board if the Editor-in-Chief was involved in the decision. The outcome of an appeal is final.
• Ethical standards for editors, reviewers and authors, including the handling of conflicts of interest, complaints and allegations of misconduct, are set out in the Editorial Policy. The journal is guided by COPE guidance, in particular the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.
Production process after acceptance
The article production process includes successive stages during which the corresponding author is contacted via e-mail by the Technical Editor. The author accepts proofreading and final technical editing. The publication process for online articles takes approximately 12 weeks.
Publishing
Authors are not charged for publishing their papers. Articles are published in open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) licence, in an electronic (online) version on reference-global.com, the platform of Paradigm Publishing Services: https://reference-global.com/journal/CEEJ. The journal is owned and published by the Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw, in partnership with Paradigm Publishing Services, which provides publishing services. Details are given in the Open access, licence and copyright policy.
If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us at ceej@uw.edu.pl
