Editor Guidelines
The editors of Current Research in Plant Science are responsible for safeguarding the quality, integrity, credibility, and academic independence of the journal.
Editorial Responsibility
Editors must evaluate manuscripts objectively according to scientific quality, originality, significance, relevance to the journal's aims and scope, ethical compliance, and publication standards.
Editorial decisions must not be influenced by an author's nationality, institutional affiliation, gender, ethnicity, religion, political views, or other personal characteristics.
Editorial Independence
Editors must maintain editorial independence and make decisions free from inappropriate pressure or influence from the publisher, sponsors, advertisers, authors, reviewers, or other external parties.
Publication charges or commercial considerations must not influence editorial decisions.
Initial Editorial Assessment
Editors should assess manuscripts for:
- Relevance to the journal's aims and scope
- Scientific quality
- Originality and significance
- Methodological soundness
- Clarity and completeness
- Research and data integrity
- Ethical and regulatory compliance, where applicable
Editors may request clarification, revision, supporting information, additional peer review, or further editorial assessment where necessary.
Peer Review
Manuscripts selected for external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent reviewers with appropriate expertise.
Editors must select reviewers objectively, consider conflicts of interest, protect reviewer confidentiality, and take reasonable steps to avoid unnecessary delays.
Reviewer recommendations are advisory and do not automatically determine the editorial decision.
Final Editorial Decision
The Editor-in-Chief has overall responsibility for editorial decisions and the academic integrity of the journal.
The Editor-in-Chief may delegate manuscript handling and decision-making to an Associate Editor or another formally designated editor with appropriate expertise and authority.
The Editor-in-Chief or formally designated editor may:
- Accept the manuscript
- Request minor or major revision
- Request additional peer review or clarification
- Reject the manuscript
Final decisions must be based on the manuscript, relevant peer-review reports, ethical requirements, and journal policies.
Conflicts of Interest
Editors must identify and appropriately manage actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest.
An editor must not handle a manuscript where a significant conflict exists. Such manuscripts should be assigned to another qualified editor for independent handling.
Editor and Editorial Board Submissions
When an Editor, Editorial Board member, or other person directly involved in editorial decision-making submits a manuscript, the manuscript must be handled independently by another qualified editor. The submitting editor must not participate in the editorial decision.
Confidentiality
Editors must maintain confidentiality regarding manuscripts, unpublished data, reviewer reports, reviewer identities, editorial correspondence, and other information obtained during the editorial process.
Research and Publication Ethics
Editors should ensure, where applicable, that manuscripts address:
- Research ethics approval
- Animal welfare
- Human participant protection
- Field research permissions
- Data integrity
- Funding
- Author contributions
- Conflicts of interest
- Data availability
- Research transparency and reproducibility
Misconduct
Editors should investigate credible concerns relating to plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabrication, falsification, inappropriate image manipulation, unethical research, authorship disputes, undisclosed conflicts, peer-review manipulation, or other research misconduct.
Where appropriate, the journal may request supporting documentation, contact relevant institutions, suspend processing, or issue a correction, expression of concern, or retraction.
Appeals and Complaints
Authors may raise a substantive appeal or complaint with the editorial office. Appeals should provide clear reasons and relevant evidence. Appeals are considered fairly and independently and do not guarantee reversal of the original decision.
Corrections and Retractions
Editors have a continuing responsibility to protect the integrity of the published scholarly record. The journal may publish corrections, expressions of concern, or retractions when necessary.
Special Issues and Guest Editors
Special Issue manuscripts must follow the same editorial, peer-review, ethical, and publication standards as regular submissions. Guest editors must disclose conflicts of interest and must not compromise the journal's editorial independence.
Artificial Intelligence
Editors may use AI-assisted tools only where appropriate and where confidentiality is protected.
Confidential manuscripts, unpublished data, proprietary information, reviewer reports, or other protected materials must not be uploaded to external AI systems where confidentiality or intellectual property could be compromised.
AI tools must not replace human editorial judgment or responsibility.
Publication Ethics Standards
The journal supports internationally recognized principles and guidance relevant to scholarly publishing, including COPE, CSE, EASE, NLM, and other applicable research-integrity and publication-ethics standards.