Gold Bulletin - Important Update to Our Submission Guidelines

Please be aware, that we have now added a detailed peer review description to our submission guidelines (this opens in a new tab):

Additional Information for Peer Review Process

This journal is guided by the Springer Portfolio editorial peer review policy (this opens in a new tab)

The following types of contribution to this journal are peer-reviewed:

Research, Review

Editorials and all forms of published correction may also be peer-reviewed at the discretion of the editors.

Nevertheless, articles published in these sections, particularly if they present technical information, may be peer-reviewed at the discretion of the editors.

The corresponding author is notified by e-mail when the editor decides to send a paper for review. Manuscripts judged to be of potential interest to our readership are sent for formal review, typically to at least two or three reviewers. Reviewer selection is critical to the publication process, and we base our choice on many factors, including expertise, reputation, specific recommendations and our own previous experience of a reviewer's characteristics. When selecting reviewers, we invest a lot of effort to avoid any conflicts of interest and close associates of the authors. Springer Nature is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion; Springer journals strive for diverse demographic representation of peer reviewers.

This journal operates a single-anonymized peer review process (this opens in a new tab). In line with policy, reviewers are not identified to the authors, except at the request of the reviewer.

This journal requires potential reviewers to disclose any professional and commercial competing interests before undertaking to review a paper, and does not allow reviewers to copy papers or forward them to any others. If invited reviewers do not accept the invitation, they may suggest other reviewers. All reviewers agree to these conditions before the journal sends them a manuscript to assess. Although our Editors go to every effort to ensure manuscripts are assessed fairly, the journal is not responsible for the conduct of its reviewers.

The editors then make a decision based on the reviewers' advice, from among several possibilities: (a) Accept, with or without editorial revisions (b) Invite the authors to revise their manuscript to address specific concerns before a final decision is reached (c) Reject, but indicate to the authors that further work might justify a resubmission (d) Reject outright, typically on grounds of specialist interest, lack of novelty, insufficient conceptual advance or major technical and/or interpretational problems.