Initial assessment

Upon receiving your submission, your article will undergo an initial evaluation by the Editorial Team. Sometimes articles can be desk rejected without peer review at this stage. This will be due to the article bring out of scope for the journal or otherwise unsuitable.

If your article passes the initial evaluation by the Editorial Team, it will then move through the peer review process. An email notification from the OJS portal will be sent to you when a decision has been reached.

Next stages by article type

For Research articles and Review articles, the journal holds to a rigorous double-anonymised review procedure, in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are concealed from both parties. To maintain the integrity of this process the Editorial Team assign two reviewers of their choosing, even if recommendations by authors are made.

For Focus and Featured Graphic articles, the journal adheres to a single-blind review procedure, where the reviewers know the identity of the authors, but the authors do not know the identity of the reviewers. The review may be undertaken by members of the editorial team or an outside expert.

For Editorial articles and Book Review articles, the journal does not require peer review to be accepted. These submissions will be reviewed by a member of the editorial team for quality, interest and clarity of presentation.

Review comments and revisions

PPP aims to review articles as quickly as possible, while maintaining rigor. Reviewers will provide comments for the author as well as recommendations to the Editors. The Editors will then make the final decision on all manuscripts, including those appearing in a special issue.

If major revisions are needed, there may be a requirement of the author to resubmit the article after they have addressed any comments from the first review. If that’s the case, the article may have to undergo another round of reviews, which will result in another set of comments and recommendations to the Editor. In this case, the original reviewers are normally asked to re-review the revised version.

Use of AI

Peer reviewers must not upload papers or sections of papers submitted through the PPP editorial process into a generative AI tool.

If reviewers choose to use AI in any part of their review, they must state how AI has been used. For example, to search for relevant literature in the field. Reviewers must not use AI as an unacknowledged co-author in their review.

Review process for Editorial team members

A PPP Editor may occasionally submit their own articles for possible publication in the Journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor will not be involved in the decision-making process.