Peer Review Process

The Review Process and Peer review

The review process is not intended to “gate-keep”; nor to reject submissions; but to ensure that the research published in the journal has applied the moral principles which ensure the protection of the dignity, rights and welfare of participants; not fabricated, falsified, or misrepresented research data; is not plagiarised; has been designed and conducted in a way that ensures the findings are accurate and reliable; and respects academic responsibility, towards humanity, the environment and animal welfare.  The review process is intended to enable the production of rigorously conducted research. 

Given the above, the review process is explicitly concerned to assist early-career researchers.

The structure of the journal (the large number of editors and associate editors) is intended to ensure that we are not overwhelmed with IAR work, and can follow as rapid editorial process as possible.

 Deadlines are essential.

The review process will depend upon the commitment of the authors, the editor (or associate editor) and the reviewers to engage in a supportive but demanding process of ensuring a manuscript is ready for submission. 

The review process

Submissions will be read and assessed by an Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor, or Special Issue Editor to determine suitability for publication in this journal.  At this stage, a decision will be made either not to proceed with the submission or to send it out for review.  The review process depends upon the precious time of other academics, so a decision not to proceed is intended to ensure that this time is used wisely.  Nonetheless, submissions submitted within the scope of the journal, which receive a “not proceed” decision, can expect a helpful explanation of how the work might be developed.

If a submission is deemed suitable, it will typically be sent to two anonymous reviewers for an independent expert assessment of its academic thoughtfulness, creativity and scientific quality. 

After the first review round, a decision may be made not to proceed with the submission.  If a decision is made that the submission needs further revisions, the Editorial team are making a commitment to work with the authors of the submission to support the authors to bring the manuscript to publishable quality.  This may involve a more dialogic approach to revisions of the manuscript.  Manuscripts at this stage may still be rejected for serious misconduct (plagiarism, falsifying data, harm to research participants and so on) or, in exceptional cases, for failure to genuinely engage with the review process.  It is hoped that the majority of manuscripts will only need two rounds of reviews.

An individual editor is not allowed to take on a submission on which they are an author or co-author or on which they have a close relationship to the author or co-authors.

To provide more clarity on conflicts of interest: the editor and reviewers should not be (or have been) co-authors, colleagues, or PhD supervisors of any member of the author team. Such submissions will be dealt with by another editor in the same way as other academic submissions.

In the case of a decision not to proceed, an author, or authors, may lodge an appeal.  The appeal will be considered by a panel of editors (or perhaps the Trustees?) who have had no prior involvement with the manuscript.  Importantly, the process should be one of advocacy for the author.  No editorial decision should be made on the basis of traditional measures of “prestige” like rejection rates, impact factors, citation counts, etc.  The panel’s/trustee’s decision will be final.

The responsibilities of the editors-in-chief, assistant editors and special issue editors

  • The dominant responsibility is to embrace, respect, convey, foster the overarching philosophy of the journal. IAR serves a collective purpose of actually making something happen that makes the times a bit less horrific than they are now.
  • Editors-in-chief, assistant editors and special issue editors have the responsibility for making accept/revise/reject decisions.  They may consult with other editors about their decisions.
  • When making their decisions, editors should ensure that everyone is treated fairly and are awarded the same opportunities and that no-one is treated differently or discriminated against because of their personal characteristics.  Personal characteristics include, but are not limited to:
    • age
    • disability
    • gender reassignment
    • marital or civil partnership status
    • native language
    • pregnancy and maternity
    • race (including colour, nationality and ethnic or national origins)
    • religion or belief (including lack of belief)
    • sex
    • sexual orientation
  • Editors should, value and take account of different backgrounds, knowledge, skills, and experiences.  Indeed, these differences should be seen as advantageous. 

  • Editors shall endeavour to ensure the peer review process is just, sympathetic, and timely.    When selecting reviewers, the knowledge and expertise of the reviewer is essential. 

The responsibilities of the reviewers

Peer review involves:

  • the evaluation of manuscripts, in terms of their ability to disperse academic research
  • assisting the author in improving the paper,
  • treating author(s) with respect;
  • alerting the editors, if possible, of any potential ethical concerns (for example, plagiarism, abuse of AI, falsified empirical work);
  • assisting the editor in making decisions;
  • reviewing the manuscript in a timely manner (preferably within one month);
  • the right balance between supporting the authors and avoiding to drag the review process for too long

If a reviewer feels unable to take on a review, they should decline to take on the review.

Special issues and article collections

Normally, there will be an annual call for special issue proposals, and the editorial team will collectively decide which submissions will be selected for the call for papers.  However, in exceptional circumstances, special issue proposals will be considered.  In particular, we encourage guest editors from under-represented groups or regions.  One Editor in Chief will be charged with oversight of the special issue.

The number of manuscripts accepted for a special issue is not limited.  But, we expect special issues to contain a coherent set of manuscripts related to the special issue.   Short editorial summaries will be published with each special issue contextualizing its theme.

The ethos and procedures for publishing in special issues will follow the same requirements as for regular academic article submissions set out above.  It is envisaged that most Special Issues will involve a conference, symposium, or similar that will typically be online to align with our democratic, free, and fair approach to publishing accounting research.