Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology - Editorial Policy for Topical Collection/Special Issues of Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology

Once the Topical Collection/Special Issues is agreed upon by Editor-in-Chiefs and open for submissions, the Guest Editor(s) will be in charge of inviting and selecting papers for the Topical Collection/Special Issues.  

Guest Editor(s) and invited authors should follow Springer Nature’s and Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology (this opens in a new tab) Editorial Policies carefully before they submit their paper. This information can be found at Editorial Policies. (this opens in a new tab)

Reviewers should follow Springer Nature’s Peer-Review Policy, Process and Guidance (this opens in a new tab).

The Topical Collection/Special Issues may publish submissions from the Guest Editor(s), but the submission ratio from Guest Editor(s) might not exceed 20%.  The Guest Editor(s) must not be involved in editorial process for his or her own papers. Peer review of any such submission should be handled by journal editorial board member who has no conflict of interest. Then Editors-in-Chief shall make final decision.

Topical Collection/Special Issues reviewing processes must proceed in accordance with the principles of transparency and objectivity, which is achieved through adherence to the established practice of blind peer reviews. The manuscripts submitted to the Topical Collection/Special Issues also follow the single-blind reviewing. A general review process for each submission consists of two stages: initial check and peer review.

Initial check: all the submitted manuscripts will be initially checked firstly by JEO assistant on technical requirement, ant then by Editor –in-Chief, and/or the Guest Editor(s). At this stage, a decision of “Reject without review” would be made for the submissions which do not meet the scope of the Journal and the topic of the Topical Collection/Special Issues, or/and the publication standards of Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology (this opens in a new tab).  

After initial check, the following process should be adhered to:

All submissions to the Topical Collection/Special Issues must be reviewed based on single blind peer-review process conducted in Editorial Manager. Qualified reviewers (no less than two independent experts in the same or related areas) will be invited for peer review by the Guest Editor(s). When a submission has at least two useable reports, the Guest Editor(s) can return it to authors for revision (major or minor), or make recommendations to the Editors-in-Chief regarding whether to accept the manuscript for publication or reject it. Then Editors-in-Chief shall make final decision. If the Editors-in-Chief deem it necessary to invite reviewers for further evaluation, the Editors-in-Chief will directly invite new reviewers to review the manuscript.Guest Editor(s) and reviewers should have no conflict of interest with authors and/or research. Otherwise, it would affect the objectivity of the peer review process.If Guest Editor(s) or reviewers inappropriately request citations of their own published papers or papers from journals (mandatory citations), they can be withdrawn and replaced during the peer review.If a paper is not well-matched with the Topical Collection/Special Issues but probably can be accepted as a regular paper by journal, it should be transferred to Editors-in-Chief to make the decision.