Peer Review Process

A manuscript submitted to the RPE is necessarily subject to a single-blind scientific review by at least two leading experts in the relevant field. The Editorial Board appoints reviewers from among the well-known highly qualified scientists and specialists who have the profound professional knowledge and work experience in a specific scientific area. The reviewing of manuscripts is confidential.

The objective of a review is to promote rigorous selection of author manuscripts for publication and to make specific recommendations for their improvement.

The review procedure provides a comprehensive analysis of the submitted manuscript and is aimed at an objective assessment of its content and compliance with the journal requirements.

When assessing the manuscript and writing a review, the reviewers adhere to the following criteria:

·   correspondence of the subject matter of the manuscript to the scientific areas (rubrics) of the journal,

·   the relevance of the chosen research topic,

·   scientific novelty of the presented results and their practical importance,

·   the correspondence of the goals and objectives of the work to the factual material,

·   advantages and disadvantages of the content and form of manuscript presentation,

·   recommendations for finalizing the manuscript,

·   the need to reduce the manuscript,

·   the possibility (or impossibility) of publishing a peer-reviewed manuscript in the journal.

A reviewer’s decision is not final. Authors have a right to appeal against a reviewer’s decision. In this case the paper should be sent to the independent referee or to adjudicating member of the Editorial Board for assessment. A final decision on the appeal remains with the Editorial Board.

The Editor makes the decision on the paper, and informs the authors on the decision.

Once reviewer reports have been received, authors are given 2 weeks to revise the manuscript. The revised manuscript along with a point-by-point response to the reviewer reports and with the explanations on any changes made in the manuscript should be returned to the Editorial Office.

The author’s version of the paper, agreed with the reviewers, is approved by the Editorial Board and sent to the editorial office to prepare for publication. The author acquaints him (her) self with the remarks of the scientific and literary editors. After completing the draft layout, the author makes the necessary corrections, and this version of the paper is considered to be final, after which the replacement of text, figures or tables becomes inadmissible.