Guidelines for Reviewers

  1. Before conducting a review for CEPAR, all reviewers must read these guidelines, which serve as an aid to carry out their mandate and to ensure they act in full awareness of our policies and practices.

  2. Peer reviewers assist the editors in making editorial decisions and the authors in improving the papers, within the CEPAR Aims and Scope. The reviewer is also expected to check the  Publication Ethics and also whether the manuscript has been written in line with the Authors Guidelines, which are available on the journal website and in each printed copy of the journal. The reviewer can in no manner disseminate any article submitted to him or her for review, nor in any manner discuss it, except with the members of the editorial board of the Central European Public Administration Review.
  1. All submitted papers are subject to a double blind peer-review process, that is a procedure carried out by at least two referees of different affiliations and, in principle, different mother public administration disciplines related to the article, specialised in the area covered by a particular paper. Additional reviewer(s) may be nominated, particularly when the reviews by the original referees differ significantly.

  2. The reviewers preview a manuscript that they have been asked to review to see if they have any conflict of interest that could jeopardise their review. The reviewers must disclose to the editors any conflict of interest that could bias their opinions of the manuscript and recuse themselves from reviewing specific manuscripts if the potential for bias exists.

  3. The reviewers recuse themselves from the assignment if it becomes apparent to them at any stage that they do not possess the required expertise to perform the review.

  4. The manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential at every stage. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and may not be used for any personal advantage. Likewise, the manuscript may not be shown to or discussed with third persons except when authorised by the editor.

  5. The reviewers who have accepted manuscript assignments are expected to submit their reviews in due time, according to the agreement with the editorial office, usually in a few weeks. Any referee who feels unqualified to review the subject of a manuscript or is unable to promptly review a paper, must notify the editorial office thereof and withdraw from the process.

  6. The reviews are conducted as objectively as possible. The reviewers must refrain from engaging in personal criticism of the author(s). They are encouraged to express their views clearly, explain and justify the recommendations made, and hence provide a constructive, friendly, and specific feedback to assist the author(s) in improving their work, even if, in their opinion, the manuscript is not publishable. Personal criticism of the author(s) is both unprofessional and inappropriate. While we welcome strict comments and reviews, the reviewers are encouraged to avoid being unnecessarily harsh on the authors. In particular, reviewers would avoid comments addressed to the authors directly, but rather address the content of the manuscript.

  7. The reviewers must identify in their reviews any relevant published work that has not been cited by the author(s), together with any instances in which proper attribution of sources has not been provided. They must call to the responsible editor’s attention any major resemblances between a manuscript under consideration and other published articles or papers of which they are aware, as well as any concerns they might have in relation to the ethical acceptability of the research reported in the manuscript.

  8. The reviewers must immediately notify the editor of any similarities between the manuscript under review and another paper published or under consideration by another journal. The reviewers must immediately call to the editor’s attention a manuscript containing plagiarised material or falsified data.