Frequently Asked Questions
How does the Transfer Desk work?
When you think a manuscript might be eligible for transfer, you can choose the decision ‘Decline and Transfer to Transfer Desk’ to offer the authors a transfer. The authors will receive your decision email with a link they can click to either accept or decline the transfer offer. You can suggest one or more destination journals in your decision email, but this is not required. When the author accepts the transfer offer, the Transfer Desk team will contact them and assist them with the process of finding a suitable journal.
The Transfer Desk performs pre-checks on many aspects of the manuscript and only publishable and complete manuscripts are allowed to proceed: If the manuscript passed the checks, the Transfer Desk will analyse the manuscript and propose one or more suitable journals to the author. The author can choose his preferred journal(s). The Transfer Desk will assist the author with the submission to the journal-of-choice, where the author finalises the submission and the regular editorial process continues.
Please note that the transfer does NOT guarantee acceptance; it just helps authors to resubmit their work to another journal in an easy and convenient way.
How do I suggest a transfer?
Once the transfer functionality has been implemented for your journal, you can simply select the final decision “Decline and transfer to Transfer Desk” in Editorial Manager and the manuscript will be automatically sent to our Transfer Desk (after the author’s approval). The Transfer Desk team will then support the authors in finding the best journal for their work and assist with their resubmission.
At what point can I suggest a transfer?
A transfer can be offered before or after peer-review and includes any available review reports as they may help to reduce the workload for the reviewer community. Your reviewers will of course be asked for their permission first.
If a manuscript is transferred, what happens to the previously conducted peer review?
As soon as the author has accepted the transfer offer, the manuscript, along with all available review reports and personal details will be transferred to the Transfer Desk. Your reviewers will of course be asked for their permission first. The review reports will also be included in the transfer from the Transfer Desk to the new destination journal, as they may help to reduce the workload for the reviewer community.
To which journals can a manuscript be transferred?
The Transfer Desk team will combine the authors’ preferences and any editor recommendations with our journal matching technology to find the best home for the manuscript. The Transfer Desk can help authors resubmit to almost all journals in our portfolio of more than 2,000 titles, including Open Access journals, journals with an Impact Factor or indexed by major services. We will analyze a manuscript and use our advanced journal recommendation tool to match it against all journals in our portfolio to find the best venue for a manuscript: we will send the authors one or more suitable journals with their current Impact Factors (when appropriate). We can take the author’s preference or requirement for a specific (type of) journal into account and advise them accordingly.
At any time in the process authors can withdraw their manuscript if they change their mind about the transfer service or if they would like to revise their manuscript. The Transfer Desk is simply a service to help authors find the best journal for your work; we will never transfer their manuscript to any journal without their permission.
How can I suggest a specific journal that might be suitable?
If you would like to suggest a specific journal that might be suitable for a certain manuscript, please add a comment in the decision email you send when offering the transfer. Our team will take your recommendation into account during our analysis of the manuscript. Please note that it is not required to recommend another journal.
Does a submission via the Transfer Desk guarantee publication?
No. Manuscripts submitted via the Transfer Desk’ will be assessed by additional academics against the editorial criteria of the new journal, and will be sent out for further review if previous reports are not available.
What happens if the author declines the offer to use the Transfer Desk?
If the authors decline a transfer, or do not reply to the offer, neither their manuscript files nor their personal data will be accessed by the Transfer Desk team. The manuscript will remain archived in the submission system of the original journal, and the authors are free to submit their paper to a different journal.
How can I receive a transferred manuscript?
When our analysis marked your journal to be suitable for a manuscript, we will include your journal as one of the recommended journals to our authors. If the authors decided to submit to your journal, the Transfer Desk will help submit the manuscript to your journal on the authors’ behalf.
What are the benefits of receiving transferred manuscripts?
It is beneficial for you in many ways:
- Receiving transferred manuscripts from other journals can help you increase the number of quality submissions to your journal in an easy and convenient way.
- You help speed up the publication process and reduce the workload for reviewers because all available review reports will be transferred to your journal along with the actual manuscript preventing reviewers from receiving the same manuscript twice.
- Also, it will help new authors find your journal.
In general, with transfer manuscripts you support the scientific community in publishing all good quality manuscripts.
Do I have to accept a manuscript that is transferred to my journal?
No, you are always free to reject the submission after further review when you decide it is not suitable for your journal after all. We understand that you cannot give any guarantee that the manuscript will be accepted and that it will need to undergo your normal editorial evaluation procedures.