Reviewer Guidelines
Current Research in Plant Science follows a single-anonymous (single-blind) peer-review process. Reviewer identities remain confidential, while author identities are disclosed to reviewers.
Reviewer Selection
Manuscripts requiring external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent reviewers with appropriate expertise in plant science or the relevant subject area.
Reviewers should have suitable academic, scientific, methodological, or professional expertise to provide a reliable assessment.
Confidentiality
Manuscripts and all information received during peer review must be treated as confidential.
Reviewers must not share, reproduce, discuss, distribute, or use unpublished manuscript information for personal or professional advantage.
Reviewer Responsibilities
- Provide objective, impartial, constructive, and evidence-based comments.
- Evaluate the originality and significance of the work.
- Assess the scientific and methodological quality.
- Evaluate experimental, field, laboratory, statistical, or computational methods as applicable.
- Assess whether the results support the conclusions.
- Consider reproducibility and transparency.
- Evaluate the quality and relevance of references.
- Identify possible plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabrication, falsification, or inappropriate image manipulation.
- Declare actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest.
- Decline the assignment when they lack sufficient expertise or cannot complete the review within the required period.
Evaluation Criteria
- Relevance to the journal's scope
- Originality and significance
- Scientific quality
- Appropriateness of study design and methodology
- Quality of experimental or field procedures
- Appropriateness of statistical analysis
- Accuracy and clarity of results
- Validity of conclusions
- Reproducibility and transparency
- Quality and relevance of references
- Ethical and regulatory compliance, where applicable
Research Ethics
Where applicable, reviewers should consider whether the manuscript provides appropriate information concerning research ethics, animal welfare, human participants, biological materials, field permissions, biodiversity requirements, or other relevant regulatory matters.
Review Report
Reviewers should provide:
- General comments
- Specific comments on the manuscript
- Confidential comments to the Editor, where necessary
- A publication recommendation
Recommendations may be:
- Accept
- Minor Revision
- Major Revision
- Reject
Reviewer recommendations are advisory and do not constitute the final editorial decision.
Conflicts of Interest
Reviewers must disclose financial, institutional, personal, professional, academic, or competitive relationships that could affect their impartiality. Reviewers should decline the assignment when a significant conflict exists.
Research Integrity Concerns
Reviewers should confidentially notify the Editor of suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabricated or falsified data, inappropriate image manipulation, unethical research practices, or other publication-integrity concerns.
Timeliness
Reviewers are normally requested to complete their review within 4–5 weeks of accepting the invitation. If additional time is required, reviewers should inform the editorial office.
Artificial Intelligence
Reviewers must protect the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts. Confidential manuscripts, unpublished data, proprietary information, or reviewer reports must not be uploaded to external AI systems where confidentiality or intellectual property could be compromised.
AI tools must not replace the reviewer's independent scholarly judgment.