Decision Making Policy

Pre-submission inquiries

We welcome pre-submission inquiries about the suitability of a manuscript, particularly of manuscripts that involve unconventional or experimental elements. However, we can provide only limited advice and support at this stage, and prior communication with the editors does not guarantee that a manuscript will be reviewed or accepted.

Peer-review process

All manuscripts submitted to ESTS are initially reviewed by the Editorial Collective for alignment with the journal’s scope, priorities, and quality expectations. Manuscripts will be rejected without review (desk-rejected) if they are out of scope, if they are not likely to be useful and interesting to a broad STS readership (e.g., if they may be better placed in a more narrowly focused journal), or if they do not meet the journal’s expectations for readability and quality of argument. The editors may also ask authors to revise a manuscript before it’s sent for review, or to reject the manuscript but encourage the authors to resubmit a revised version (“reject and resubmit”).

Manuscripts should be prepared in accord with the journal’s Submission Guidelines. Manuscripts that do not do so, including manuscripts longer than 9,000 words, will be returned to authors and reconsidered when they meet these guidelines.

Manuscripts that appear appropriate for ESTS will be assigned to a handling editor, who will solicit at least two reports from peer-reviewers. Peer-review is double-blind (author(s) and reviewers do not know each other’s identities) unless the manuscript cannot reasonably be anonymized, in which case single-blind review (authors do not know the reviewer’s identities) will be used. Very short submissions may be reviewed within the Editorial Collective at the editors’ discretion and in conversation with the authors.

[Need to figure out what we’re doing about STS-Infrastructures…]

ESTS aims to support the STS community, and we interpret the journal’s mission of openness to include openness to multiple forms of scholarship and publishing processes. We encourage authors to experiment with form, including unconventional formal structures and multimodal contributions. While our capacity to accommodate such experiments is not boundless, we encourage authors to contact the editors about supporting formats beyond traditional articles, including alternative forms of evaluation (e.g. open peer review).

Decisions

On the basis of reviewer reports and editorial judgment, manuscripts will be rejected, authors will be asked to revise and resubmit, or (very rarely) accepted for publication as-is. Revisions will be sent out for a second round of peer-review at the editor’s discretion—usually if revisions have entailed significant changes to the central argument.

In the past, submissions to ESTS have routinely undergone multiple rounds of revision and multiple rounds of peer-review. The current Editorial Collective is aiming to move away from this practice in light of the fraught politics of academic labor conditions, the difficulty of obtaining peer-reviewers, reviewer fatigue, and pressures—particularly on earlier career scholars—to publish quickly. We hope that this change makes submitting to and reviewing for the journal open to more people.

Timeline

We generally return initial decisions (desk-reject, reject and resubmit, send for review) within 2-3 weeks. If an article is sent out for peer-review, we aim to return reviewer reports and editorial recommendations within four months. Articles will be published online once they have been copyedited and typeset, which may take 1-2 months after they are accepted.

Appeals 

If a manuscript has undergone peer review and been declined for publication by the editors, authors may formally appeal this decision. The appeal would entail the manuscript and all relevant materials, including the identities of the authors, being sent to an ad hoc committee consisting of at least two members of ESTS’s editorial board. The committee can review the material submitted as it is, or consider seeking additional expert advice. In both instances, a conclusion will be reached and documented within a signed advisory opinion document to be sent to the authors and ESTS editors along with a decision of acceptance or rejection. 

The appeal process is not an additional round of peer review, but only a review of the editorial decision. After the appeal, an author can request that the case be reviewed by the ESTS editor-in-chief. The entire case will then be forwarded to the editor-in-chief to ask if the procedures and hearing were both appropriate and fair. There are no more review stages.

To initiate an appeal, please contact us.

Retractions and corrections

Following guidelines issued by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), ESTS editors will consider retracting a publication if there is clear evidence that the findings are plagiarized, unreliable and/or unethical, the manuscript infringes copyright, competing interest or loyalty has arisen, or material or data has not been authorized for use. The final decision for retracting material ultimately rests with the Editorial Collective.

ESTS’s managing editor will make a post-publication correction, clarification, retraction and apology if an editor, researcher, or reader discovers there is a mistake in a published paper. The online version of record (VoR) cannot be altered, but a correction (as an addendum, errata, corrigendum) can be published alongside the paper. Please send your request to the managing editor by email. If a post-publication change is necessary the editor-in-chief and the managing editor will ensure the changes are made in accordance with COPE guidance for retractions, and post-publication discussions and corrections.