For Reviewers
The Central European Economic Journal uses the double-blind peer review method to evaluate submitted manuscripts. 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 work of the journal, and whether it meets the basic quality and formatting requirements. 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 1 week.
After the decision to review the article 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.
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 he/she indicate existing 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 period to prepare a review is 1 month. In addition to completing the REVIEW FORM and confirming the absence of a conflict of interest, reviewers make an unambiguous recommendation by selecting one of the options: Accept, Minor Revision, Major Revision, or Reject.
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 (for minor revision 1 month, for major revision 2 months), 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/corrections 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.
The same rules apply to Special Issues – a collection of papers submitted as a reply to call for papers announced by CEEJ, and also in case of manuscripts submitted by other editorial board members. In case of manuscripts submitted by Editor-in Chief, initial review is carried out by Managing Editor.
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 an electronic (online) version at the Sciendo (DeGruyter) Open platform: https://sciendo.com/journal/ceej?tab=issues
Acknowledgements to our reviewers
No scientific journal can function properly, unless it is assisted by reviewers. The editors are aware of the fact that an adequate assessment of the academic excellence of manuscripts received calls for a much broader perspective than that they can provide themselves. Therefore, we gratefully acknowledge the support of our referees. It seems to us that these double-blind peer reviews are appreciated by the authors too, as they allow for improving their texts significantly.
