This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

License and Copyright Agreement

In submitting the manuscript to any of Pensoft’s journals, authors certify that: 

• They are authorized by their co-authors to enter into these arrangements. 
• The work described has not been published before (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, review or thesis); it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere; its publication has been approved by all author(s) and responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – of the institutes where the work has been carried out. 
• They secure the right to reproduce any material that has already been published or where copyright is owned by someone else. 
• They agree to the following license and copyright agreement:

Copyright

• Copyright on any article is retained by the author(s) or the author's employer. Regarding copyright transfers please see below. 
• Authors grant Pensoft Publishers a license to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher. 
• Authors grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its original authors and citation details are identified. 
• The article and published supplementary material are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0):

Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0)

Anyone is free:

to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work 
to Remix — to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

Attribution. The original authors must be given credit. 

• For any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are. 
• Any of these conditions can be waived if the copyright holders give permission. 
• Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights.

The full legal code of this license.

Copyright Transfers

Any usage rights are regulated through the Creative Commons License. Since Pensoft Publishers is using the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), anyone (the author, their institution/company, the publisher and the public) is free to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the work as long as the original author is credited (see above). Therefore, specific usage rights cannot be reserved by the author or their institution/company and the publisher cannot include a statement "all rights reserved" in any published paper.

Website design and publishing framework: Copyright © Pensoft Publishers.

CLOCKSS system has permission to ingest, preserve, and serve this Archival Unit.

The personal information used on this website is to be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal. It will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Some journals are integrated with Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT), in order to recognise individual author input within a publication, thereby ensuring professional and ethical conduct, while avoiding authorship disputes, gift / ghost authorship and similar pressing issues in academic publishing.

During manuscript submission, the submitting author is strongly recommended to specify a contributor role for each of co-author, i.e. Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data Curation, Writing - Original draft, Writing - Review and Editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration, Funding Acquisition (see more). For the journals that are not integrated with CRediT, the submitting author is encouraged to specify the roles as a free text. Once published the article will include the contributor role for all authors in the article metadata.

Authors must be transparent about the use of Artificial Intelligence tools such as ChatGPT and other large language models in the manuscript preparation, and disclose details of how the AI tool was used within the "Materials and Methods" section.

During the pre-review evaluation, Editors-in-Chief or Subject Editors check the manuscript and decide whether it enters peer review or is outright rejected. At this point, they may reject a manuscript prior to sending it out for peer review, specifying the reasons. The most common ones are non-conformity with the journal's focus, scope and policies and/or low scientific or linguistic quality.

In case the manuscript is suitable for the journal but has to be corrected technically or linguistically, it will be returned to the authors for improvement. The authors will not need to re-submit the manuscript but only to upload the corrected file(s) to their existing submission.

This journal uses a double-blind peer review process, which means that both reviewer and author's names are concealed throughout the review process. To facilitate this, authors need to ensure that their manuscripts are prepared in a way that does not reveal their identity.

Please consider the Editor and Reviewer Guidelines in the About webpage of this journal for more details and stepwise instructions on the editorial and peer review process.

The articles published in the journal are indexed by a high number of industry leading indexers and repositories. The journal content is archived in CLOCKSS, Zenodo, Portico and other international archives. The full list of indexes and archives are shown on the journal homepage.

General

The publishing ethics and malpractice policies follow the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (joint statement by COPE, DOAJ, WAME, and OASPA), the NISO Recommended Practices for the Presentation and Identification of E-Journals (PIE-J), and, where relevant, the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals from ICMJE.

Privacy statement

The personal information used on this website is to be used exclusively for the stated purposes of each particular journal. It will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party. 

Open access

Pensoft and ARPHA-hosted journals adhere strictly to gold open access to accelerate the barrier-free dissemination of scientific knowledge. All published articles are made freely available to read, download, and distribute immediately upon publication, given that the original source and authors are cited (Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0)).

Open data publishing and sharing

Pensoft and ARPHA encourage open data publication and sharing, in accordance with Panton’s Principles and FAIR Data Principles. For the domain of biodiversity-related publications Pensoft has specially developed extended Data Publishing Policies and Guidelines for Biodiversity Data. Specific data publishing guidelines are available on the journal website. 

Data can be published in various ways, such as preservation in data repositories linked to the respective article or as data files or packages supplementary to the article. Datasets should be deposited in an appropriate, trusted repository and the associated identifier (URL or DOI) of the dataset(s) must be included in the data resources section of the article. Reference(s) to datasets should also be included in the reference list of the article with DOIs (where available). Where no discipline-specific data repository exists authors should deposit their datasets in a general repository such as, for example Zenodo or others. 

Submission, peer review and editorial process

The peer review and editorial processes are facilitated through an online editorial system and a set of email notifications. Pensoft journals’ websites display stepwise description of the editorial process and list all necessary instructions and links. These links are also included in the respective email notification.

General: Publication and authorship

• All submitted papers are subject to a rigorous peer review process by at least two international reviewers who are experts in the scientific field of the particular paper. 
• The factors that are taken into account in review are relevance, soundness, significance, originality, readability and language. 
• A declaration of potential Conflicts of Interest is a mandatory step in the submission process. The declaration becomes part of the article metadata and is displayed in both the PDF and HTML versions of the article.
• The journals allow several rounds of review of a manuscript. The ultimate responsibility for editorial decisions lies with the respective Subject Editor and, in some cases, with the Editor-in-Chief. All appeals should be directed to the Editor-in-Chief, who may decide to seek advice among the Subject Editors and Reviewers.
• The possible decisions include: (1) Accept, (2) Minor revisions, (3) Major revisions, (4) Reject, but re-submission encouraged and (5) Reject. 
• If Authors are encouraged to revise and re-submit a submission, there is no guarantee that the revised submission will be accepted. 
• The paper acceptance is constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. 
• No research can be included in more than one publication.
• Editors-in-Chief, managing editors and their deputies are strongly recommended to limit the amount of papers co-authored by them. As a rule of thumb, research papers (co-)authored by Editors-in-Chief, managing editors and their deputies must not exceed 20% of the publications a year, with a clear task to drop this proportion below 15%. By adopting this practice, the journal is taking extra precaution to avoid endogeny and conflicts of interest, while ensuring the editorial decision-making process remains transparent and fair.
• Editors-in-Chief, managing editors and handling editors are not allowed to handle manuscripts co-authored by them.

Responsibility of Authors

• Authors are required to agree that their paper will be published in open access under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) license.
• Authors must certify that their manuscripts are their original work. 
• Authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere. 
• Authors must certify that the manuscript is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere. 
• Authors should submit the manuscript in linguistically and grammatically correct English and formatted in accordance with the journal’s Author Guidelines.
• Authors must participate in the peer review process. 
• Authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes. 
• All Authors mentioned are expected to have significantly contributed to the research. 
• Authors must notify the Editors of any conflicts of interest. 
• Authors must identify all sources used in the creation of their manuscript. 
• Authors must report any errors they discover in their published paper to the Editors.
• Authors should acknowledge all significant funders of the research pertaining to their article and list all relevant competing interests.   
• Other sources of support for publications should also be clearly identified in the manuscript, usually in an acknowledgement (e.g. funding for the article processing charge; language editing or editorial assistance).
• The Corresponding author should provide the declaration of any conflicts of interest on behalf of all Authors. Conflicts of interest may be associated with employment, sources of funding, personal financial interests, membership of relevant organisations or others.

Responsibility of Reviewers

• The manuscripts will be reviewed by two or three experts in order to reach first decision as soon as possible. Reviewers do not need to sign their reports but are welcome to do so. They are also asked to declare any conflicts of interests.
• Reviewers are not expected to provide a thorough linguistic editing or copyediting of a manuscript, but to focus on its scientific quality, as well as for the overall style, which should correspond to the good practices in clear and concise academic writing. If Reviewers recognize that a manuscript requires linguistic edits, they should inform both Authors and Editor in the report.
• Reviewers are asked to check whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and coherent, how interesting it is and whether the quality of the writing is acceptable.
• In cases of strong disagreement between the reviews or between the Authors and Reviewers, the Editors can judge these according to their expertise or seek advice from a member of the journal's Editorial Board.
• Reviewers are also asked to indicate which articles they consider to be especially interesting or significant. These articles may be given greater prominence and greater external publicity, including press releases addressed to science journalists and mass media.
• During a second review round, the Reviewer may be asked by the Subject Editor to evaluate the revised version of the manuscript with regards to Reviewer’s recommendations submitted during the first review round.
• Reviewers are asked to be polite and constructive in their reports. Reports that may be insulting or uninformative will be rescinded.
• Reviewers are asked to start their report with a very brief summary of the reviewed paper. This will help the Editors and Authors see whether the reviewer correctly understood the paper or whether a report might be based on misunderstanding.
• Further, Reviewers are asked to comment on originality, structure and previous research: (1) Is the paper sufficiently novel and does it contribute to a better understanding of the topic under scrutiny? Is the work rather confirmatory and repetitive? (2) Is the introduction clear and concise? Does it place the work into the context that is necessary for a reader to comprehend the aims, hypotheses tested, experimental design or methods? Are Material and Methods clearly described and sufficiently explained? Are reasons given when choosing one method over another one from a set of comparable methods? Are the results clearly but concisely described? Do they relate to the topic outlined in the introduction? Do they follow a logical sequence? Does the discussion place the paper in scientific context and go a step beyond the current scientific knowledge on the basis of the results? Are competing hypotheses or theories reasonably related to each other and properly discussed? Do conclusions seem reasonable?  Is previous research adequately incorporated into the paper? Are references complete, necessary and accurate? Is there any sign that substantial parts of the paper were copies of other works?
• Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
• Reviewers should keep all information regarding papers confidential and treat them as privileged information. 
• Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments. 
• Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.
• Reviewers should also call to the Editors’ attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Responsibility of Editors

• Editors in Pensoft’s journals carry the main responsibility for the scientific quality of the published papers and base their decisions solely on the papers' importance, originality, clarity and relevance to publication's scope.
• The Subject Editor takes the final decision on a manuscript’s acceptance or rejection and his/her name is listed as "Academic Editor" in the header of each article.
• The Subject Editors are not expected to provide a thorough linguistic editing or copyediting of a manuscript, but to focus on its scientific quality, as well as the overall style, which should correspond to the good practices in clear and concise academic writing. 
• Editors are expected to spot small errors in orthography or stylistic during the editing process and correct them.
• Editors should always consider the needs of the Authors and the Readers when attempting to improve the publication. 
• Editors should guarantee the quality of the papers and the integrity of the academic record. 
• Editors should preserve the anonymity of Reviewers, unless the latter decide to disclose their identities. 
• Editors should ensure that all research material they publish conforms to internationally accepted ethical guidelines. 
• Editors should act if they suspect misconduct and make all reasonable attempts to obtain a resolution to the problem. 
• Editors should not reject papers based on suspicions, they should have proof of misconduct.
• Editors should not allow any conflicts of interest between Authors, Reviewers and Board Members.
• Editors are allowed to publish a limited proportion of papers per year co-authored by them, after considering some extra precautions to avoid an impression of impropriety, endogeny, conflicts of interest and ensure that the editorial decision-making process is transparent and fair.
• Editors-in-Chief, managing editors and handling editors are not allowed to handle manuscripts co-authored by them.
         

Neutrality to geopolitical disputes

General

The strict policy of Pensoft and its journals is to stay neutral to any political or territorial dispute. Authors should depoliticize their studies by avoiding provoking remarks, disputable geopolitical statements and controversial map designations; disputable territories should be referred to as well-recognised and non-controversial geographical areas. Тhe journal reserves the right to mark such areas at least as disputable at or after publication, to publish editor's notes, or to reject/retract the paper.

Authors' affiliations

Pensoft does not take decisions regarding the actual affiliations of institutions. Authors are advised to provide their affiliation as indicated on the official internet site of their institution.

Editors 

Editorial decisions should not be affected by the origins of the manuscript, including the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race, or religion of the authors. Decisions to edit and publish should not be determined by the policies of governments or other agencies outside of the journal itself.

Human and animal rights

The ethical standards in medical and pharmacological studies are based on the Helsinki declaration (1964, amended in 1975, 1983, 1989, 1996, 2000 and 2013) of the World Medical Association and the Publication Ethics Policies for Medical Journals of the World Association of Medical Journals (WAME).

Authors of studies including experiments on humans or human tissues should declare in their cover letter a compliance with the ethical standards of the respective institutional or regional committee on human experimentation and attach committee’s statement and informed consent; for those researchers who do not have access to formal ethics review committees, the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki should be followed and declared in the cover letter. Patients’ names, initials, or hospital numbers should not be used, not in the text nor in any illustrative material, tables of databases, unless the author presents a written permission from each patient to use his or her personal data. Photos or videos of patients should be taken after a warning and agreement of the patient or of a legal authority acting on his or her behalf.

Animal experiments require full compliance with local, national, ethical, and regulatory principles, and local licensing arrangements and respective statements of compliance (or approvals of institutional ethical committees where such exists) should be included in the article text.

Informed consent

Individual participants in studies have the right to decide what happens to the identifiable personal data gathered, to what they have said during a study or an interview, as well as to any photograph that was taken. Hence it is important that all participants gave their informed consent in writing prior to inclusion in the study. Identifying details (names, dates of birth, identity numbers and other information) of the participants that were studied should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and genetic profiles unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the participant (or parent or guardian if the participant is incapable) gave written informed consent for publication. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve in some cases, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic profiles, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning.

The following statement should be included in the article text in one of the following ways:

• "Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study."
• "Informed consent was obtained from all individuals for whom identifying information is included in this article." (In case some patients’ data have been published in the article or supplementary materials to it).

Gender issues

We encourage the use of gender-neutral language, such as 'chairperson' instead of 'chairman' or 'chairwomen', as well as 'they' instead of 'she/he' and 'their' instead of  'him/her' (or consider restructuring the sentence).

Conflict of interest

During the editorial process, the following relationships between editors and authors are considered conflicts of interest: Colleagues currently working in the same research group or department, recent co-authors, and doctoral students for which the editor served as committee chair. During the submission process, the authors are kindly advised to identify possible conflicts of interest with the journal editors. After manuscripts are assigned to the handling editor, individual editors are required to inform the managing editor of any possible conflicts of interest with the authors. Journal submissions are also assigned to referees to minimize conflicts of interest. After manuscripts are assigned for review, referees are asked to inform the editor of any conflicts that may exist.

Appeals and open debate

We encourage academic debate and constructive criticism. Authors are always invited to respond to any editorial correspondence before publication. Authors are not allowed to neglect unfavorable comments about their work and choose not to respond to criticisms. 

No Reviewer’s comment or published correspondence may contain a personal attack on any of the Authors. Criticism of the work is encouraged. Editors should edit (or reject) personal or offensive statements. Authors should submit their appeal on editorial decisions to the Editorial Office, addressed to the Editor-in-Chief or to the Managing Editor. Authors are discouraged from directly contacting Editorial Board Members and Editors with appeals.

Editors will mediate all discussions between Authors and Reviewers during the peer review process prior to publication. If agreement cannot be reached, Editors may consider inviting additional reviewers if appropriate. 

The Editor-in-Chief will mediate all discussions between Authors and Subject Editors.

The journals encourage publication of open opinions, forum papers, corrigenda, critical comments on a published paper and Author’s response to criticism.

Misconduct

Research misconduct may include: (a)  manipulating research materials, equipment or processes; (b) changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the article; c) plagiarism. Research misconduct does not include honest error or differences of opinion. If misconduct is suspected, journal Editors will act in accordance with the relevant COPE guidelines.

Plagiarism and duplicate publication policy
A special case of misconduct is plagiarism, which is the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results or words without giving appropriate credit. Plagiarism is considered theft of intellectual property and manuscripts submitted to this journal which contain substantial unattributed textual copying from other papers will be immediately rejected. Editors are advised to check manuscripts for plagiarism via the iThenticate service by clicking on the "ïThenticate report" button. Journal providing a peer review in languages other than English (for example, Russian) may use other plagiarism checking services (for example, Antiplagiat). 
Instances, when authors re-use large parts of their publications without providing a clear reference to the original source, are considered duplication of work. Slightly changed published works submitted in multiple journals is not acceptable practice either. In cases of plagiarism in an already published paper or duplicate publication, an announcement will be made on the journal publication page and a procedure of retraction will be triggered.

Responses to possible misconduct

All allegations of misconduct must be referred to the Editor-In-Chief. Upon the thorough examination, the Editor-In-Chief and deputy editors should conclude if the case concerns a possibility of misconduct. All allegations should be kept confidential and references to the matter in writing should be kept anonymous, whenever possible.

Should a comment on potential misconduct be submitted by the Reviewers or Editors, an explanation will be sought from the Authors. If it is satisfactory and the issue is the result of either a mistake or misunderstanding, the matter can be easily resolved. If not, the manuscript will be rejected or retracted and the Editors may impose a ban on that individual's publication in the journals for a certain period of time. In cases of published plagiarism or dual publication, an announcement will be made in both journals explaining the situation.

When allegations concern authors, the peer review and publication process for their submission will be halted until completion of the aforementioned process. The investigation will be carried out even if the authors withdraw the manuscript, and implementation of the responses below will be considered.

When allegations concern reviewers or editors, they will be replaced in the review process during the ongoing investigation of the matter. Editors or reviewers who are found to have engaged in scientific misconduct should be removed from further association with the journal, and this fact reported to their institution.

Retraction policies

Article retraction

According to the COPE Retraction Guidelines followed by this Journal, an article can be retracted because of the following reasons:

• Unreliable findings based on clear evidence of a misconduct (e.g. fraudulent use of the data) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error).
• Redundant publication, e.g., findings that have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification.
• Plagiarism or other kind of unethical research.

Retraction procedure

• Retraction should happen after a careful consideration by the Journal editors of allegations coming from the editors, authors, or readers.
• The HTML version of the retracted article is removed (except for the article metadata) and on its place a retraction note is issued.
• The PDF of the retracted article is left on the website but clearly watermarked with the note "Retracted" on each page.
• In some rare cases (e.g., for legal reasons or health risk) the retracted article can be replaced with a new corrected version containing apparent link to the retracted original version and a retraction note with a history of the document.

Expression of concern

In other cases, the Journal editors should consider issuing an expression of concern, if evidence is available for:

• Inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct by the authors.
• Unreliable findings that are unreliable but the authors’ institution will not investigate the case.
• A belief that an investigation into alleged misconduct related to the publication either has not been, or would not be, fair and impartial or conclusive.
• An investigation is underway but a judgement will not be available for a considerable time.

Errata and Corrigenda

Pensoft journals largely follow the ICMJE guidelines for corrections and errata.

Errata

Admissible and insignificant errors in a published article that do not affect the article content or scientific integrity (e.g. typographic errors, broken links, wrong page numbers in the article headers etc.) can be corrected through publishing of an erratum. This happens through replacing the original PDF with the corrected one together with a correction notice on the Erratum Tab of the HTML version of the paper, detailing the errors and the changes implemented in the original PDF. The original PDF will be marked with a correction note and an indication to the corrected version of the erratum article. The original PDF will also be archived and made accessible via a link in the same Erratum Tab.

Authors are also encouraged to post comments and indicate typographical errors on their articles to the Comments tab of the HTML version of the article.

Corrigenda

Corrigenda should be published in cases when significant errors are discovered in a published article. Usually, such errors affect the scientific integrity of the paper and could vary in scale. Reasons for publishing corrigenda may include changes in authorship, unintentional mistakes in published research findings and protocols, errors in labelling of tables and figures or others. In taxonomic journals, corrigenda are often needed in cases where the errors affect nomenclatural acts. Corrigenda are published as a separate publication and bear their own DOI. Examples of published corrigenda are available here.

The decision for issuing errata or corrigenda is with the editors after discussion with the authors.

This journal endorses the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidelines and will pursue cases of suspected research and publication misconduct (e.g. falsification, unethical experimentation, plagiarism, inappropriate image manipulation, redundant publication). For further information about COPE please see the website for COPE at http://www.publicationethics.org and journal's Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement.

This document describes the Terms of Use of the services provided by the BRICS Journal of Economics journal, hereinafter referred to as "the Journal" or "this Journal". All Users agree to these Terms of Use when signing up to this Journal. Signed Journal Users will be hereinafter referred to as "User" or "Users".

The publication services to the Journal are provided by Pensoft Publishers Ltd., through its publishing platform ARPHA, hereinafter referred to as "the Provider".

The Provider reserves the right to update the Terms of Use occasionally. Users will be notified via posting on the site and/or by email. If using the services of the Journal after such notice, the User will be deemed to have accepted the proposed modifications. If the User disagrees with the modifications, he/she should stop using the Journal services. Users are advised to periodically check the Terms of Use for updates or revisions. Violation of any of the terms will result in the termination of the User's account. The Provider is not responsible for any content posted by the User in the Journal.

Account Terms

1. For registration in this Journal or any of the services or tools hosted on it, Users must provide their full legal name, a valid email address, postal address, affiliation (if any),  and any other information requested.
2. Accounts created via this journal automatically sign in the User to the ARPHA Platform.
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8. The User’s personal data is processed by the Journal on the legal basis corresponding to Article 6, paragraph 1, letters a, b, c and f. of the General Data Protection Regulation (hereinafter referred to as GDPR) and will be used for the purpose of Journal’s services in accordance with the present Terms and Use, as well as in those cases expressly stated by the legislation.
9. User’s consent to use the information the Journal has collected about the User corresponds to Article 6(1)(a) of the GDPR.
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The Authors retain full ownership to their content published in the Journal. We claim no intellectual property rights over the material provided by any User in this Journal. However, by setting pages to be viewed publicly (Open Access), the User agrees to allow others to view and download the relevant content. In addition, Open Access articles might be used by the Provider, or any other third party, for data mining purposes. Authors are solely responsible for the content submitted to the journal and must confirm [during the submission process] that the content does not contain any materials subject to copyright violation including, but not limited to, text, data, multimedia, images, graphics, photos, audio and video clips. This requirement holds for both the article text and any supplementary material associated with the article.

The Provider reserves the rights in its sole discretion to refuse or remove any content that is available via the Website.

Copyrighted Materials

Unless stated otherwise, the Journal website may contain some copyrighted material (for example, logos and other proprietary information, including, without limitation, text, software, photos, video, graphics, music and sound - "Copyrighted Material"). The User may not copy, modify, alter, publish, transmit, distribute, display, participate in the transfer or sale, create derivative works or, in any way, exploit any of the Copyrighted Material, in whole or in part, without written permission from the copyright owner. Users will be solely liable for any damage resulting from any infringement of copyrights, proprietary rights or any other harm resulting from such a submission.

Exceptions from this rule are e-chapters or e-articles published under Open Access (see below), which are normally published under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license (CC-BY), or Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (CC-BY), or Creative Commons Public Domain license (CC0).

Open Access Materials

This Journal is a supporter of open science. Open access to content is clearly marked, with text and/or the open access logo, on all materials published under this model. Unless otherwise stated, open access content is published in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence (CC-BY). This particular licence allows the copying, displaying and distribution of the content at no charge, provided that the author and source are credited.

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Title: The title should be written in sentence case (only scientific names, geographic locations, or other proper nouns should be capitalized), and should include an accurate, clear and concise description of the reported work, avoiding abbreviations.

Authors and Affiliations: Provide a Cover letter containing the complete names of all authors, and their addresses for correspondence, including e.g., institutional affiliation (e.g. university, institute), location (street, boulevard), city, state/province (if applicable), and country. One of the authors should be designated as the corresponding author. It is the corresponding author's responsibility to ensure that the author list, and the individual contributions to the study are accurate and complete. If the article has been submitted on behalf of a consortium, all consortium members and their affiliations should be listed after the Acknowledgements section.

Abstract and Key Words: The abstract should be informative (without general words), original, factful (provide a summary of the content of the article and key results of the study), written in good English, concise (between 200 and 250 words). The abstract should be structured and include the following sections:

• Purpose (explaining the problem that you have solved);
• Study design / methodology / approach (explaining the methods that you have used to reach your results)
• Findings (presenting what you found during your research and explaining whether it answers the problem you set out to explore)
• Originality / value (providing the analysis of the value of your results)

It should be followed by up to 6–8 keywords that convey the main meaning of the article.

Keywords should be in alphabetical order and ideally differ from the words used in the title. Please have your abstract and keywords ready for input into the submission module.

Body Text: Only original works are published. The papers, when first submitted, should normally be between 6,000 – 9,000 words, and after revisions they do not generally exceed 60,000 signs (spaces inc.). All papers should be written in clear, concise, and grammatically correct English. Authors are asked to certify that their manuscripts are written in fluent English or edited by a professional English language editor prior to submission. Use either British/Commonwealth or American English provided that the language is consistent within the paper. The voice - active or passive - and the tense used should be consistent throughout the manuscript. Avoid the use of parenthetical comments and italics or bold for emphasis. This journal discourages the use of quotation marks except for direct quotations, words defined by the author, and words used in unusual contexts. Short quotations should be embedded in the text and enclosed in double quotation marks ("). Long quotations should be on a separate line, italicized, but without quotation marks. Single quotation marks are to be used only for a quotation that occurs within another quotation.

Spacing, Fonts, and Page Numbering: Single-space all material (text, quotations, figure legends, tables, references, etc.). Separate paragraphs with a blank line. Use a 12-point font (preferably Times New Roman or Arial).

Capitals: First capital letters should be used only in the beginning of a sentence, in proper names and in headings and subheadings, as well as to indicate tables, graphs and figure/s within the text. Software programmes should be written with capital letters (e.g., ANOVA, MANOVA, PAUP).

Italicization/Underlining: Scientific names of species and genera, long direct quotations and symbols for variables and constants (except for Greek letters), such as p, F, U, T, N, r, but not for SD (standard deviation), SE (standard error), DF (degrees of freedom) and NS (non significant) should be italicized. These symbols in illustrations and equations should be in italics to match the text. Italics should not be used for emphasis, and not in abbreviations such as e.g., i.e., et al., etc., cf. Underlining of any text is not acceptable.

Abbreviations: Abbreviations should be followed by ‘.' (full stop or period; for instance: i.e., e.g., cf., etc.). Note that you shouldn't add a full stop at the end of abbreviated words if the last letter of the abbreviation is the same as the last letter of the full word. For example, you should abbreviate "Eds", "Dr", "Mr" without full stop at the end. All measures, for instance mm, cm, m, s, L, should be written without full stop.

On the use of dashes: (1) Hyphens are used to link words such as personal names, some prefixes and compound adjectives (the last of which vary depending on the style manual in use) (2) En-dash or en-rule (the length of an 'n') is used to link spans. In the context of our journal en-dash should be used to link numerals, sizes, dates and page numbers (e.g., 1977–1981; figs 5–7; pp. 237–258); geographic or name associations (Murray–Darling River; a Federal–State agreement); and character states combinations such as long–pubescent or red–purple. (3) Em-dash or em-rule (the length of an 'm') should be used rarely, only for introducing a subordinate clause in the text that is often used much as we use parentheses. In contrast to parentheses an em-dash can be used alone. En-dashes and em-dashes should not be spaced.

Footnotes: Avoid footnotes in the body text of the manuscript. It is always possible to incorporate the footnote into the main text by rewording the sentences, which greatly facilitates reading. Additionally, footnotes are not always handled well by software, and their usage may cause failures in the text processing.

Statistics: Use leading zeroes with all numbers, including probability values (e.g., P < 0.001). For every significant F−statistic reported, provide two df values (numerator and denominator). Whenever possible, indicate the year and version of the statistical software used.

Web (HTML) links: Authors are encouraged to include links to other Internet resources in their article. This is especially encouraged in the reference section. When inserting a reference to a webpage, please include the http:// portion of the web address.

Headings and subheadings: Main headings: The body text should be subdivided into different sections with appropriate headings. Where possible, the following standard headings should be used:

Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, Acknowledgements, References. These headings need to be in bold font on a separate line and start with a first capital letter. Please do not number headings or subheadings.

• Introduction − The motivation or purpose of your research should appear in the Introduction, where you state the questions you sought to answer, and then provide some of the historical basis for those questions.
• Methods − Provide sufficient information to allow someone to reproduce your study. A clear description of your experimental design, sampling procedures, and statistical procedures is especially important in papers describing field studies, simulations, or experiments. If you list a product (e.g., animal food, analytical device), supply the name and location of the manufacturer. Give the model number for equipment used. Supply complete citations, including author (or editor), title, year, publisher, and version number, for computer software mentioned in your article.
• Results − Results should be stated concisely and without interpretation.
• Discussion − Focus on the rigorously supported aspects of your study. Carefully differentiate the results of your study from data obtained from other sources. Interpret your results, relate them to the results of previous research, and discuss the implications of your results or interpretations. Point out results that do not support speculations or the findings of previous research, or that are counter intuitive. You may choose to include a Speculation subsection in which you pursue new ideas suggested by your research, compare and contrast your research with findings from other systems or other disciplines, pose new questions that are suggested by the results of your study, and suggest ways of answering these new questions.
• Conclusion − State clearly the main conclusions of the research and give a clear explanation of their importance and relevance. Summary illustrations may be included.
• References − The list of References should be included after the final section of the main article body. A blank line should be inserted between single-spaced entries in the list. Authors are requested to include DOIs and/or links to online sources of articles, whenever possible! References should follow APA 7th edition reference style. Examples are available here, but authors should consult the full handbook for specific guidance on style. Please include Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) in the format https://doi.org/xxxxxx. When there is no DOI, add in a stable URL if available.

Where possible, the standard headings should be used in the order given above. Additional headings and modifications are permissible.

Subordinate headings: Subordinate headings should be left-justified, italicized, and in a regular sentence case. All subordinate headings should be on a separate line.

Citations within the text: Before submitting the manuscript, please check each citation in the text against the References and vice-versa to ensure that they match exactly. Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include "Unpublished manuscript". Citation of a reference as "in press" implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

Citations in the text should be formatted as follows:

• Single author: the author’s name (without initials) and the year of publication (separated by comma).
• Two authors: both authors’ names (separated by "and") and the year of publication.
• Three or more authors: first author’s name followed by "et al." and the year of publication.

Citations may be made directly (or parenthetically). Groups of references should be listed first alphabetically, then chronologically. Examples: "as demonstrated (Smith, 2006a, 2006b, 2011; Brock and Gunderson, 2010). Smith et al. (2000) have recently shown ...."

References: It is important to format the references properly because all references will be linked electronically as completely as possible to the papers cited. References should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters "a", "b", "c", etc., placed after the year of publication. It is desirable to add a DOI (digital object identifier) number for either the full-text or title and abstract of the article as an addition to traditional volume and page numbers. If a DOI is lacking, it is recommended to add a link to any online source of an article.

References should follow the referencing style used by the American Psychological Association (APA). Details can be found here. Examples:

Reference to a journal publication:
Beck, T., & Laeven, L. (2006). Institution building and growth in transition economies. Journal of Economic Growth, 11 (2), 157–186.

Reference to a book:
Friedman, M. (1956). A theory of the consumption function. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book: 

Giannoni, M., & Woodford, M. (2004). Optimal inflation-targeting rules. In B. Bernanke, & M. Woodford (Eds), The inflation-targeting debate (pp. 93–172). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Figures and illustrations are accepted in the following image file formats:

• EPS (preferred format for diagrams)
• TIFF (at least 300dpi resolution, with LZW compression)
• PNG (preferred format for photos or images)
• JPEG (preferred format for photos or images)
• GIF
• BMP
• SVG

Figure legends: All figures should be referenced consecutively in the manuscript; legends should be listed consecutively immediately after the References. For each figure, the following information should be provided after the figure: Figure number (in sequence, using Arabic numerals − i.e. Figure 1, 2, 3 etc.); short title of figure (maximum 15 words); detailed legend, up to 300 words.
Please note that it is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain permission from the copyright holder to reproduce figures or tables that have previously been published elsewhere.

Figure citations in the text should always be with Capital "F" and En-dash for ranges. One figure with a full stop, figures without.

Example: Fig. 1, Figs 1–3, Fig. 2A–E.

Citations of figures from other publications should always be Lower Case (fig. / figs). When two subsequent figures or parts are cited (for instance figures 1 and 2 or A and B), a comma should be used.

Example:  Figs 1, 2 and Fig. 1A, B.

Parts belong to one figure.

Example: Fig. 1A, B and Fig. 2A-E.

Tables: Each table should be numbered in sequence using Arabic numerals (i.e. Table 1, 2, 3 etc.). Tables should also have a title (given before the table) that summarizes the whole table, maximum 15 words. Detailed legends may then follow, but should be concise.
Do not use tabs to format tables or separate text. All columns and rows should be visible, please make sure that borders of each cell display as black lines. Colour and shading should not be used; neither should commas be used to indicate decimal values. Please use a full stop to denote decimal values (i.e., 0.007 cm, 0.7 mm).
Larger datasets can be uploaded separately as Supplementary Files. Tabular data provided as supplementary files can be uploaded as an Excel spreadsheet (.xls), as an OpenOffice spreadsheets (.ods) or comma-separated values file (.csv). As with all uploaded files, please use the standard file extensions.

The journal is integrated with Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT), in order to recognise individual author input within a publication, thereby ensuring professional and ethical conduct, while avoiding authorship disputes, gift / ghost authorship and similar pressing issues in academic publishing.

During manuscript submission, the submitting author is strongly recommended to select a contributor role for each of co-author, using a list of 14 predefined roles, i.e. Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data Curation, Writing - Original draft, Writing - Review and Editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration, Funding Acquisition (see more). Once published, the article will be including the contributor role for all authors in the article metadata.

Authors must submit the revised version of the manuscript using Track Changes/Comments tools of Word so that the Subject Editor can see the corrections and additions.

Authors must address all critiques of the referees in a response letter to the editor and submit it along with the revised manuscript through the online editorial system. In case a response letter is not submitted by the authors, the editor has the right to reject the manuscript without further evaluation. When resubmitting a manuscript that has been previously rejected with resubmission encouraged, authors must include the response letter to the article text file, and the pdf review version, so that it gets to the Subject Editor and the reviewers during the peer review.

When submitting corrections to proofs (during the layout stage), authors must upload the latest proof (in PDF format) containing their revisions as track changes.

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Registration and login are required to submit items online and to check the status of current submissions.

Submission of manuscripts to this journal is possible only through the online submission module. We kindly request authors to consult the Focus and Scope section prior to submission. In order to submit a manuscript to the journal, authors are required to register with the journal and/or to login. Once logged in, you will find the online submission system by clicking the "Submit manuscript" button.

The manuscript submission process is separated into the following steps:

• Step 1: Specifying the manuscript type and completing the submission checklist
• Step 2: Choosing the payment option and requesting optional services
• Step 3: Typing in the author(s) names and affiliation, title, abstract, keywords, and other metadata
• Step 4: Assigning classifications categories for your manuscript using hierarchical classification trees
• Step 5: Completing the submission metadata by adding details about any supporting agencies, conflict of interest, ethical statetment, comments to the editors
• Step 6: Agreeing with the journal's Data Publishing Policy and specifying the availability of the data underpinning your article
• Step 7: Uploading the submission file and the additional files: the cover letter, the manuscript WORD file for review (which must not contain indications of authorship) and all other required files (see below for details on how to prepare them).
• Step 8: Confirming the automatically generated pdf review version of the article, and the metadata (or revising them, if needed)
• Step 9: Uploading supplementary files (see below for details) and associated metadata
• Step 10: Suggesting reviewers, final verification of the submitted files and confirmation

Stepwise guidance on new manuscript submission, with screenshots of the interface embedded, is available online in this section of the User Manual.

Before starting your submission please make sure that your manuscript is formatted in accordance with the Author Guidelines.

Manuscripts submitted to this journal must be divided into separate files (no larger than 20 MB each) to allow their processing by our software. Before attempting an online submission, please consider preparing the following file types:

1. Cover letter 

This part is for the handling Subject Editor only and will not be sent to the reviewers. Please check the Author Guidelines section and follow the specific indications that apply for BRICS Journal of Economics. In case it is a mandatory requirement, please structure the cover letter accordingly.

2. Submission file

Review version of the manuscript: a TEXT (MS WORD) file in either DOC, DOCX, RTF or ODT format, which does NOT contain indications of authorship.. The total file size must be no larger than 80 MB. The system allows two options for the submission file upload:

• it could contain all figures embedded at their respective places within the manuscript: 

  • Advantage: The review version of the manuscript will be more convenient for reading and understanding by the reviewers and editors. Likewise, if you opt to post your manuscript on ARPHA Preprints and this is allowed by the current journal’s policies, it will be better organised for the readers.

  • Drawback: Additional effort is needed to place and number the figures within the text.

• it could contain the article text only, while the figures are added separately in the allowed formats (see below), so that the system can add them automatically to the PDF version that will be sent for review. The authors have the option to check and replace, if needed, the PDF review version generated at the first submission step:

  • Advantage: No additional effort is needed for placing and numbering the figures within the text.

  • Drawback: All figures will be placed at the end of the manuscript and the review version will be less convenient for reading and understanding by the reviewers and editors. The same concerns your preprint if you decide to post it on ARPHA Preprints and this is allowed by the current journal’s policies.

3. Additional files

High-resolution figures must be submitted during the same submission process as the additional files (Step 7) in one of the accepted file formats (see below). These may be compressed in order to reduce bandwidth during upload:

• Figures (each figure as an individual file in one of the following image file formats: EPS, TIFF, JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, not larger than 20 MB each)
• Equations (each equation as an individual file in one of the above-mentioned image file formats)

Please note that the maximum file size that may be uploaded through our online submission system is 20 MB.

4. Supplementary files (appendices)

Large datasets or multimedia files, usually published as appendices in conventional print journals, should be uploaded as supplementary files complete with the associated metadata on the online submission form. Supplementary files should have their own legends. However, no authors' names must be given at this stage in any of the files because reviewers will have access to them. (Note that the system requires you to enter the authors of the files in separate fields. This information is not visible to the reviewers.)

Most file formats are accepted. Text-only appendices must be in DOC, DOCX, RTF, or ODT formats.

Submissions that do not meet these formal requirements will be returned without review.

Should you have any technical problems in submitting a manuscript to this journal, please contact the Editorial Office at journals@pensoft.net.

The following guidelines apply for both Special issues and Topical collections in the ARPHA journals.

1. Article collections can be opened in any of the ARPHA-hosted journals. It is subject to the journal's policy, however, to offer this feature or not. 

2. Special issues are available only in the journals that publish consecutively numbered issues within a yearly volume, while topical collections are available to all ARPHA-hosted journals, depending on their policies.

3. Collections may have subcollections, for example, topical subcollections. A subcollection cannot be managed separately from the parent collection, except in the case of conference proceedings submission workflows available at some ARPHA-hosted journals.

4. Opening and managing a collection

   1. The article collections are managed by a Collection editor and Guest editors. The Collection editor is responsible for approving or declining manuscripts submitted to the article collection; assigning a Guest editor to each manuscript for handling the peer review process; and managing the collection on the journal’s website (e.g. change the collection’s description or the order of the papers). The Collection editor has the full rights of a Guest editor and can also handle manuscripts.

   2. Before pitching a collection, assure that you are ready to appoint other Guest editors, if necessary. The Collection editor and the Guest editors are also expected to commission an initial set of manuscripts to be submitted soon after the opening of the collection.

   3. Submit the Article collection proposal form or contact the Editor-in-Chief via email. The collections should fully comply with the journal’s focus, scope and editorial policies.

   4. Online proposals are forwarded to the Editor-in-Chief and to the journal’s editorial office for approval. The editorial office checks and confirms the guest editors' credentials.

   5. Upon approval of the proposal, the journal’s editorial office will set up the collection on the journal’s website.

   6. Open collections will be promoted through the journal’s website and social media in collaboration with the Collection and Guest editors. 

   7. Editors of Special issues need to assure that the minimum volume of articles is met within the set deadline and that, if necessary, a deadline extension is announced well in advance.

   8. Editors of Topical collections with no set submission deadlines need to inform the journal’s editorial office if they wish to close the collection for submissions in a timely manner. 

5. Authors opt for assigning their manuscript to a collection during submission. In case the manuscript is declined from the collection, it undergoes the regular evaluation and peer review process at the journal.

6. Once the manuscript passes the initial pre-review screening by the Editor-in-Chief and the journal's editorial office, it is forwarded to the Collection editor to either approve or decline it for the collection. The Collection editor is notified about each new submission to the collection via email sent by the system.

7. After reading the paper, the Collection editor can:

   1. accept it in the collection and assign it to a Guest editor.

   2. decline it from the collection and send it back to the journal's editorial office.

8. Once a manuscript is assigned to a Guest editor, he or she takes on the responsibility to invite reviewers and provide an editorial decision for revision, rejection or acceptance of the manuscript, based on the reviews and personal evaluation. Papers submitted by the guest editor(s) must be handled under an independent review process and make up no more than 25% of the collection's total.

9. The editorial decisions are automatically forwarded to the authors by the system.

10. The guest editors are overseen by the journal's Editor-in-Chief and/or dedicated board members, and may intervene in the editorial process. Depending on the journal’s policy, the journal’s Editor-in-Chief might need to approve the Guest editor’s final decision before the manuscript is accepted for publication.

The main advantages to open and edit an article collection can be summarised as follows:

1. Credit and recognition for the Collection and Guest editors who take care to organise and manage the article collection.

2. Facilitates discoverability and usability of topically related studies, which in turn benefits both authors and readers.

3. Increases the visibility of related papers, even when papers might otherwise lack in viewership. 

4. Prompts simultaneous citation of multiple articles related to a certain subject.

5. Facilitates citation and referencing of the whole issue as a complete entity.

To show our gratitude to the collection editors, we are also providing a free publication to collection editors in the collection they edit and manage.

By proposing an article collection (Special issue or Topical collection), you agree to act as a Collection editor, whose main responsibilities are:

• Working with the editorial office to set up the article collection on the journal’s website.

• Appoint Guest editors for the article collection.

• Approve or decline each manuscript submitted to the article collection.

• Assign a Guest editor for each manuscript submitted to the article collection.

• Assure that the article collections complies with any relevant requirements, as set up by the journal and the agreement (if any).

• Inform the journal’s editorial office about any changes or issues concerning the management of the collection in due time.

You will also be granted the user rights of a Guest editor necessary to handle manuscripts in the system (i.e. assign reviewers and provide an editorial decision on the acceptance/rejection of the manuscript). 

The responsibilities of a Guest editor are:

• Handling the peer review of the manuscripts they have been assigned to.

• Making an editorial decision for revision, acceptance or rejection of the manuscripts they have been assigned to, based on the reviews provided and personal evaluation.

• Taking into consideration the recommendations of the journal’s Editor-in-Chief.

The journal adheres to the "Best practices for guest edited collections" by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The collection editors should first familiarise themselves with those guidelines before applying for or starting working on a guest edited article collection.

For more information about the editorial workflow, visit How it works?

Manuscripts can be accessed after login

Reviewers must register at the journal's website. New users will receive an automated notification with a request to confirm registration and account information, and options for setting a password, email alerts and other features.  
Note: All users can use their registration details to login in all three (Book, E-Book and the respective Journal) platforms of www.pensoft.net.
Note: Users who have registered with two or more different email addresses, may have multiple accounts at www.pensoft.net. We advise using only one email address, for all your operations at www.pensoft.net. Accounts can be merged on a user's profile page.  
Note: The users can at any time change the initially set password and correct personal details using their user's profile menu (by clicking on the user's name in the upper right corner of the screen appearing after login).

If you have forgotten your password, please use the function Forgot your password? or write to request it from journals@pensoft.net.

There are two ways to access a manuscript

1. After login, go to the respective journal’s web page and click on My Tasks button in the upper right corner of the screen. In the left column, you will see all manuscripts you are responsible for as an author or reviewer or editor. The manuscripts are grouped by categories: In Review (no.), In layout (no.), Published (no.), and Archived (no.) etc. The number in brackets after each category shows the number of manuscripts that are assigned to you.

2. Click on the direct manuscript link provided in the email notification you have received from the online editorial system.

Subject, or Academic, editors in Pensoft’s journals carry the main responsibility for the scientific quality of the papers. They take the final decision on a manuscript’s acceptance or rejection and their names are listed as Academic Editor in the header of each published article.

The editorial process is facilitated through an online editorial system and a set of email notifications. The online editorial system informs the Subject Editor about any change in the status of a manuscript, from submission to publication.

The online editorial system is designed to save time and effort for Subject Editors. There is no need for editors to visit the journal’s website to keep track of the manuscripts they are responsible for; the online system will inform the Subject Editor when an invited reviewer has accepted or declined to review. The email notifications contain stepwise instructions what action is needed at each stage, as well as a link to the respective manuscript (see How to Access a Manuscript).

Editors are allowed to publish a limited proportion of papers per year co-authored by them, after considering some extra precautions to avoid an impression of impropriety, endogeny, conflicts of interest and ensure that the editorial decision-making process is transparent and fair.

Subject Editors are not expected to provide thorough linguistic editing or copyediting of a manuscript, but rather focus on its scientific quality and overall style, which should correspond to good practices in clear and concise academic writing. It is the author’s responsibility to submit the manuscript in linguistically and grammatically correct English. The Subject Editor should not hesitate to recommend either Reject, or Reject, but resubmission encouraged PRIOR to the peer-review process, in cases when a manuscript is scientifically poor and/or does not conform to journal’s style, and/or is written in poor English (see Note under point 1 below how to reject a manuscript prior to peer review).

1. Once a manuscript is submitted, the Managing Editor (or the Editor-in-Chief) briefly checks if the manuscript for conforms with the journal's Focus, Scope, Policies and style requirements and decides whether it is potentially suitable for publication and can be processed for review, or rejected immediately, or returned to the author for improvement and resubmission.
   Note: The Managing Editor or Editor-in-Chief can reject/return a manuscript prior to review process via the buttons Reject or Return to the author for correction in the Editorial tab. These buttons become active only after a justification for the rejection or return is provided in the text field.

2. At this stage, the Managing Editor (or the Editor-in-Chief) can also check the manuscript for plagiarism via the iThenticate service by clicking on the "ïTehnticate report" button.

3. When a manuscript is suitable, the Managing Editor (or the Editor-in-Chief) assigns it to the Subject Editor responsible for the respective topic 

4. The assigned Subject Editor next reads the manuscript to decide whether it is potentially suitable for publication and can be processed for review, or rejected immediately, or returned to the author for improvement and re-submission. Reasons for rejection can be a low scientific quality, non-conformance to the journal’s style/policies, and/or linguistically or grammatically poor English language.
   Note: There are two ways for a Subject Editor to reject a manuscript prior to review process:

• Through the buttons Reject or Reject, but re-submission encouraged in the Editorial tab. These buttons become active only after a justification for the rejection is provided in the text field.

• Through an email to the Editorial office explaining the reason for rejection. The manuscript will be then rejected/returned through the online editorial system and the respective notification email will be sent from the Editorial Office.

5. In case the manuscript is acceptable for peer review, the Subject Editor has to invite reviewers by clicking on the Invite reviewers link. The Subject Editor can select from a list of reviewers, starting with the ones suggested by the authors during the submission process, and followed by the reviewers who are already listed in the database, or add new reviewers (see #7).

6. Once reviewers are chosen, the Subject Editor has to click the Invite reviewers green button at the end of the page which will generate email templates with review invitations. It is highly recommended that the Subject Editor adds some personal words above the standard email text of the review invitation.

7. In case a reviewer is absent from our users' data-base, the Subject Editor can add his/her names and email through the Add new reviewer link, which will appear once the search field reveals no results. It is possible that the needed reviewer has already been registered in the Pensoft database either as customer or author/reviewer of another journal. If this is the case, then his/her names, affiliation and other metadata will automatically appear once the e-mail field is populated in the Create user online form.

8. The Subject Editor receives a notification email when the Reviewer agrees or declines to review. The Subject Editor can appoint additional Reviewers if some of the invited reviewers decline.

9. Once all Reviewers submit their reviews, the Subject Editor receives an email notification, inviting him/her to consider Reviewers’ opinions, read through the manuscript and take a decision through the Proceed button.
   Note: Editorial comments can be added in the online editorial form, alternatively, comments and corrections can be added in a manuscript file (either on the PDF version or in the text file), which can be uploaded during finalization of the editorial decision process.

10. At this stage, the Subject Editor should take a decision either to (1) accept the manuscript, (2) reject it, (3) recommend Major or Minor Revisions, or open a second review round. In case the manuscript is not rejected, but recommended for Minor Revision, Major Revision, or Acceptance, the author is expected to submit a revised version within a certain period of time.
    Note 1: Authors must submit revised versions as a text file using Track Changes/Comments tools of Word so that the Subject Editor can see their corrections/additions. Authors must reply to the critiques and comments of reviewers separately ina point-by-point document. The point-by-point may be a separate document (preferred) or pasted into the provided box in the online editorial system.
    Note 2: During the second, or next, review round, the Subject Editor may decide to ask reviewers to evaluate the revised version of the manuscript. He/she may also make a decision based on the author’s responses and the revised version of the manuscript without asking additional reviewers' support.

11. After acceptance, the manuscript will go to layout and proofreading. The Subject Editor will be notified by email when the final proof is uploaded on the journal’s website. The Subject Editor is expected to look at the proofs and notify the Editorial Office through email in case the proofs need improvement.

12. The Subject Editor may always access information on the manuscripts which have been edited by him/her through the menu My Tasks –> Subject Editor on the journal’s web page – In Review (no.), In Edit (no.), Published (no.), and Archived (no.). The number in brackets after each category shows the number of manuscripts that were assigned.

While selecting a Reviewer or a Subject Editor to assign to a manuscript, Editors can access the current and past workload for the person they are considering.

By clicking on the user’s name, an Editor sees how many editorial or review tasks the person is currently assigned with, as well as a record of the user’s previous performance across all ARPHA-hosted journals (i.e. number of accepted and declined editorial and review assignments, as well as the titles of the corresponding journals).

The feature is meant to facilitate and expedite the editorial process by discouraging assignment of tasks to overburdened or inactive users.

Find how to Manage Subject editor assignments and Invite Reviewers in the ARPHA Manual.

Manuscripts can be accessed after login

Reviewers must register at the journal's website. New users will receive an automated notification with a request to confirm registration and account information, and options for setting a password, email alerts and other features.  
Note: All users can use their registration details to login in all three (Book, E-Book and the respective Journal) platforms of www.pensoft.net.
Note: Users who have registered with two or more different email addresses, may have multiple accounts at www.pensoft.net. We advise using only one email address, for all your operations at www.pensoft.net. Accounts can be merged on a user's profile page.  
Note: The users can at any time change the initially set password and correct personal details using their user's profile menu (by clicking on the user's name in the upper right corner of the screen appearing after login).

If you have forgotten your password, please use the function Forgot your password? or write to request it from journals@pensoft.net.

There are two ways to access a manuscript

1. After login, go to the respective journal’s web page and click on My Tasks button in the upper right corner of the screen. In the left column, you will see all manuscripts you are responsible for as an author or reviewer or editor. The manuscripts are grouped by categories: In Review (no.), In layout (no.), Published (no.), and Archived (no.) etc. The number in brackets after each category shows the number of manuscripts that are assigned to you.

2. Click on the direct manuscript link provided in the email notification you have received from the online editorial system.

This journal uses a double-blind peer review process. Reviewers should NOT disclose their identity. The peer review and editorial process is facilitated through an online editorial system and a set of email notifications. The online editorial system sends the Reviewer a review request, initiated by the Subject Editor or the Editorial Office. The online system will also send reminders and will confirm a successful review submission. The email notifications contain stepwise instructions about the actions needed at each stage along with the link to the respective manuscript (see section How to Access a Manuscript).

Reviewers are not expected to provide a thorough linguistic editing or copyediting of a manuscript, but rather focus on its scientific quality and overall style, which should correspond to the good practices in clear and concise academic writing. If Reviewers recognize that a manuscript requires linguistic edits, we shall be grateful for them to inform both the Author and the Subject Editor about this in the report. It is the Author’s responsibility to submit the manuscript in linguistically and grammatically correct English. It often happens that even carefully written manuscripts may contain small errors in orthography or stylistics. We shall be thankful if Reviewers spot such errors during the reading process and correct them. Reviewers are also asked to declare any conflicts of interest.

Each manuscript will generally be reviewed by two or three experts with the aim of reaching a first decision as soon as possible.

Reviewers are asked to start their report with a very brief summary of the reviewed paper. This will help the editor and the authors see whether the reviewer correctly understood the paper or whether a report might be based on misunderstanding.

Reviewers are then asked to judge the manuscript on the following criteria:

1. Novelty score (How novel is the idea / the software capabilities?) or Response score for Response papers (does the response present novel and complementary arguments or opposing views to the original paper?)
2. Feasibility/likelihood/applicability score for Perspective and Response papers (does the idea/hypothesis arise from or is supported by rigorous arguments? Is the idea or hypothesis testable? Is the new concept, term or definition useful?) or Methodology score for Research papers, Rapid communications and Horizon scanning papers (is the methodology used/analysis conducted scientifically sound?) or Utility score for Software description (Is the software responding to a well identified need? Is it likely to be used by the scientific community?)
3. Scholarship score (the authors demonstrate good knowledge and appropriate use of the current literature)
4.  Literacy score (English, grammar, clarity and logical flow reaches publication standard)

In addition to the written review, Reviewers are asked to respond to a short questionnaire that serves as a Reviewer’s checklist and ensures a standardised, comprehensive review.

When possible, the final decision is made on the basis of the peer reviews. In cases of strong disagreement between the reports or between the Authors and Reviewers, the Subject Editor can assess these according to his/her expertise or seek advice from a member of the journal's Editorial Board.

The ultimate responsibility for editorial decisions lies with the respective Subject Editor and/or with the Editor-in-Chief. All appeals should be directed to the Editor-in-Chief, who may decide to seek advice from the Subject Editors or the Editorial Board.

During a second review round, reviewers may be asked to evaluate the revised version against their recommendations submitted during the first review round.

Reviewers should be polite and constructive. Reports that may be insulting or uninformative will be rescinded.

1. This journal uses a double-blind peer review process. Reviewers should NOT disclose their identities. 

2. The Reviewer receives a review request generated by the Subject Editor or the Editorial Office and is expected to either agree to provide a review, or decline, through pressing the Will do the review or Unable to do the review link in the online editorial system.
   Note: The link to the respective manuscript is available in the review request email and all consequent reminder emails (see How to Access a Manuscript above).

3. The review should be submitted through the Proceed button. The review consists of:

• a simple online questionnaire to be answered by ticking the Yes, No, Moderately or N/A;

• comments addressed to the Author and the Subject Editor in the online form;

• associated files (corrected/commented manuscript file, review submitted in a separate text file, etc.), if any.

  Note: Reviewers can insert corrections and comments in the manuscript review version (PDF) and/or in the manuscript text file (usually Microsoft Word). When working in the PDF, please use either the Text Edits or the Sticky Notes tools (available through the menu Tools -> Comments & Markup of the Acrobat Reader). When editing in Microsoft Word please use the Track Changes / Comments tools.
  Note: Associated files should be submitted at the end of the review process by clicking on the Browse button, then selecting the respective file on your computer, and then pressing the Upload button.

4. The review process is completed by selecting a recommendation from five options:

• Reject;

• Reject, but resubmission encouraged;

• Major Revision;

• Minor Revision;

• Accept.

The system will ask for one more confirmation of the selected recommendation before submission. The submitted review cannot be changed after submission.
Note: Reasons for rejection can be a low scientific quality, non-conformance to the journal’s style/policies, and/or grammatically poor English language.

5. Once a Reviewer submits a review of a manuscript, he/she receives an acknowledgement email from the journal.

6. The submission of the review is also automatically reported to Clarivate - Web of Science Reviewer Recognition Service (formerly Publons). Reviewers are asked to confirm whether they want their reviews to be recorded on Clarivate.

7. When all Reviewers have submitted their reviews, the Subject Editor makes a decision to either accept, reject or request further minor/major revision.

8. After the Subject Editor's decision, the manuscript is sent back to the author for comments and further revision.

9. Reviewers are notified via email when the revised version of a manuscript they have reviewed is submitted by the author. They receive a link to the revised version along with the editorial decision and all reviews of the manuscript. Reviewers are also provided with a feedback form should they have any comments on the revised version. 

10. When an article is published, all Reviewers who have provided a review for the respective manuscript receive an email acknowledgement. In the email, there is a link to view/download the published article.

11. A Reviewer may always access information on the manuscripts that are being / have been reviewed by him/her through the menu My Tasks –> Reviewer on the journal’s web page – In Review (no.), In Edit (no.), Published (no.), and Archived (no.). The number in brackets after each category shows the number of manuscripts that have been assigned to you.