Peer Review Guidelines

 

Preamble

These provisions are developed in accordance with the order of publication in scientific journals financed by the St Petersburg State University (SPbU) and accepted by the editorial board of the St Petersburg University Journal of Economic Studies (SUJES).

 

Main provisions

  1. All manuscripts submitted for publishing in the SUJES should be registered by the executive secretary stating the date of receipt. The decision on acceptance (stating the date of issue)/rejection/return for the revision is taken by the chief editor of the SUJES and communicated to the author no later than 60 days after the receipt of the manuscript.
  2. All manuscripts (scientific articles, bibliography and dissertation reviews, etc.) submitted for publication in the SUJES are subject to a three-stage quality control procedure:
  • formal review by the Board secretary of the SUJES (appropriateness to the journal, formal requirements, maximum number of pages, headings, structure, layout, key words, abstract in Russian and English languages, bibliography, correct use of figures and numeric data, formulas, calculations, equations, contact details, consent of the contributing authors for publication in the SUJES, etc.);
  • preliminary review by the Editor-in-Chief and/or Executive editor (conformance of the article content to the topic stated in the heading, relevance and significance of the topic, scientific novelty, level of theoretical research, unauthorized or excessive citing of text, illustrations, tables, etc.);
  • substantial review (double-blind peer review). All remarks made by the reviewer are forwarded to the author for consideration. The author shall respond to these comments point by point and present both the reviewed version of the article and a list of responses.
    1. Formal and preliminary reviews to be held within 15 days of the receipt of the manuscript by the editorial board of the SUJES. Should the manuscript be rejected after the preliminary review the author is to be informed in writing (by e-mail).
    2. Manuscripts may be rejected at any stage of the review procedure. Members of the editorial board are informed of the manuscripts rejected after the first two review stages without further discussion. The author receives feedback of the board in writing by e-mail (see Appendix).
    3. All manuscripts, not rejected after the first two stages, are subject to peer-review by at least two specialists in the sphere close to that of the submitted manuscript. The specialists should have either a scientific degree of a candidate or doctor of sciences awarded by the State Commission for Academic degrees and titles or leading Russian educational institutions, or an equivalent degree awarded by leading foreign institutions. The Editor-in-Chief of the SUJES can authorize additional review by previous or new reviewers, including manuscripts resubmitted by the authors after their revision.
    4. Scientific review can be conducted by any qualified specialists, including the members of the editorial board of the SUJES (as a rule, one of the reviewers should not be the SPbU employee) provided there is no conflict of interests (prior relationship of subordination between the author and the reviewer, scientific supervision or co-authorship, etc.). The reviewer should inform the editorial board of the existence of the conflict of interests and withdraw from reviewing process. The author of the manuscript may indicate an objection to a reviewer.
    5. Unless the reviewer agrees in writing, his personal details are not disclosed to the author.
    6. After the peer review process the author receives a consolidated report with comments, recommendations for revision and publication conditions.
    7. Peer review should provide answers to the following questions:
  • Whether the author of the manuscript is familiar with currently published theoretical research in the chosen economic field;
  • How the manuscript relates to the existing literature, previously published data and current research in the field;
  • Whether there is unauthorized or excessive citing of text or other violations of scientific ethics;
  • Whether there is scientific novelty;
  • Whether there is and if so, what is the practical application of the manuscript;
  • How accurate is the text of the manuscript- whether the findings and the conclusions are in line with the presented data, if the manuscript meets the general and specific requirements regarding the structure of the publication, language and style, use of terminology, visualization of numeric data, diagrams, drawings and formulas, proper formatting of footnotes/endnotes, accuracy of bibliography, etc.;
  • Whether the manuscript is of any interest for the reader.
  1. Following the review the reviewer should:
  • Recommend the manuscript for publication as presented;
  • Recommend the manuscript for publication with suggestion to consider the comments of the reviewer (at the discretion of the author);
  • Recommend the manuscript for publication providing the author takes into account comments made by the reviewer and introduces changes;
  • Reject the manuscript retaining the right of the author to resubmit the manuscript;
  • Reject the manuscript without the right of resubmission.
  1. The review can be made in the form of a table (see Appendix) with obligatory comments and recommendations.
  2. No more than two revisions of the submitted manuscript are allowed. The manuscript resubmitted by the author four months later subsequent to the receipt of the review shall be considered to be submitted for the first time.
  3. The editorial board of the Series 5 must ensure that the reviewer preserves confidentiality of any information concerning the manuscript submitted for review. The reviewer should confirm in writing the obligation not to disclose the existence of the manuscript and its content, personal details of the author, etc. The reviewer should not engage in discussions of the manuscript with third parties. The reviewers may not refer to the reviewed manuscripts before their publication.
  4. Positive review is not the only requirement and does not directly result in the publication of the article. Final decision on the advisability of publication shall be taken by the editorial board and recorded in the meeting report.
  5. The reviews shall be kept in the central editorial office of the SPbU (the original) and in the editorial office of the Journal (copy) for 5 years from the publication or rejection date. All reviews of published and rejected manuscripts shall be sent to the central editorial office of the SPbU together with the articles included in the latest edition of the SUJES. Failure to produce a complete set of reviews may lead to delays or discontinuing publishing of the issue.

External peer review form